Rubber witnesses steady trend

Kottayam: Spot rubber prices continued to rule firm on July 24. RSS 4 settled flat at Rs 81.50 a kg at Kottayam lacking either buyers or sellers to set the trend. On NMCE, the August contract was firm at Rs 81.86 (81.62), September at Rs 80.35 (80.07) and October at Rs 80.03 (79.94), while the far month November declined to Rs 79.75 (79.88) per kg for RSS 4. The August contract ended at Rs 80.79 against Rs 80.72 a kg on MCX. The August futures for RSS 3 declined to 251.9 Yen (Rs 83.99) from 256.6 Yen a kg at TOCOM. The grade's spot shed 10 paise to close at Rs 84.64 a kg at Bangkok. Spot rates were (Rs/kg): RSS-4: 81.50 (81.50); RSS-5: 80 (80); ungraded: 77.50 (77.50); ISNR 20: 79.50 (79.50) and latex 60 per cent: 58.40 (58.40).