Spot pepper down, futures up

The spot pepper prices fell on limited activities while the futures contracts moved up on Thursday. The futures contracts have increased on mere speculation, market sources told Business Line and added "the trade is confused even on the decline in the spot prices".On the terminal market 4 tonnes were traded at ₹640-645 a kg. Pulpally pepper traded at ₹660 a kg. There were no sellers of high range pepper below ₹665 a kg , they said.Spot prices declined further by ₹100 a quintal to close at ₹65,700 (ungarbled) and ₹68,700 (garbled). January, February and March contracts on the IPSTA increased by ₹1,000 a quintal each and closed at ₹66,000, ₹64,000 and ₹59,000 a quintal.Indian export prices were at $10,550 a tonne c&f for Europe and $10,800 a tonne c&f for US.