"There are some offers from suppliers, but major buyers are staying on the sidelines in the physical market due to holidays in Japan, Singapore and Malaysia tomorrow," a Singapore trader said.
The Indonesian rubber market was also closed from Wednesday for the weeklong Eid-ul-Fitr Islamic celebration. Offers for Thai Ribbed Smoked Sheet No 3, or RSS3, were unchanged from Tuesday at $1.65 a kg for December and January shipment, he said.
Offers for tyre-grade Standard Thai Rubber, or STR20 block, for December and January shipment were also flat at around $1.65 a kg.
In Japan, the benchmark April 2006 rubber contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange rose 0.6 yen per kg to 191.3 yen, having traded between 188.7 and 192.4 yen.
A trading house in Tokyo said TOCOM futures rose as the yen hit a fresh two-year low against the dollar. "Some funds have rolled their long positions in January, February and March over to April," said a trader at a futures brokerage firm in Tokyo.
He put resistance for the benchmark TOCOM rubber contract at 192.0 yen with support at 187-188 yen. The discount of the TOCOM December contract against imported physical prices narrowed on Tuesday to 12.3 yen per kg from Monday's 14.3 yen, he said.
The normal discount is only around 5.0-6.0 yen. The key TOCOM contract jumped in October to more than 200 yen per kg for the first time in 17 years, supported by low domestic inventory levels and tight supplies from major producers. Malaysia's tyre-grade SMR20 was at around $1.62 a kg for December shipment, while the price of Indonesian tyre-grade SIR20 for January was at about 72.00-72.25 US cents a lb., or around $1.59 a kg, free-on-board.
"Market demand is very slow now because buyers are still thinking prices are too high," another Singapore trader said. He said physical buyers were sidelined as they were hopeful prices would fall in coming weeks.