Monday, 17 August 2015 22:59
LONDON: Arabica coffee on ICE dipped on Monday, hovering below a three-month peak touched last week and pressured by a firm dollar, while sugar eased in response to a rapid cane crush in Brazil and cocoa firmed.
“People are concerned about a smaller Brazilian arabica crop, and the market is also down because it failed to break out higher on Friday,” one arabica trader said.
Traders said coffee prices were buoyed by a report from Brazilian exporters Terra Forte that estimated carry-over stocks in the world’s biggest producer at just 4.66 million bags, the lowest level since 1999.
Second-month arabica traded down 0.20 cent, or 0.1 percent, at $ 1.4095 per lb at 1332 GMT, having risen on Friday to a three-month high of $ 1.4260.
September robusta coffee traded down $ 10, or 0.6 percent, at $ 1,703 a tonne.
Raw sugar eased under pressure from the firm dollar and traded near last week’s seven-year low, weighed down by a rapid cane harvest in centre-south Brazil and heavy stocks in India and Thailand.
“The market still has heavy oversupply, and a very fast centre-south Brazil harvest of recent weeks is adding pressure,” analysts at Green Pool said in a market note.
“Unsold Thai sugar, and India’s seeming compulsion to export at some stage, also figure prominently in the bear’s thinking.”
Tom Kujawa, co-head of softs at Sucden Financial Sugar, said: “The weather has been perfect recently for harvesting (quite dry) but we read there is rain forecast potentially for the second half of August.”
October raw sugar was down 0.09 cent a lb, or 0.8 percent, at 10.59 cents, and remained within sight of last Monday’s seven-year low of 10.37 cents.
“We seem to be range-bound above 10.50 cents a lb and below 11.00 cents in the short term,” Kujawa said.
October white sugar was down $ 1.0, or 0.29 percent, at $ 348.80 a tonne.
Cocoa prices rose, drifting further from last week’s three-month low, when a resale of 200,000 tonnes in Ivory Coast weighed on prices.
December cocoa in New York traded up $ 18 or 0.6 percent at $ 3,079 a tonne, having touched its lowest since mid-May at $ 3,020 on Thursday.
In London, December cocoa traded up 8 pounds, or 0.4 percent, at 2,052 pounds, having hit a three-month low of 2,017 pounds on Thursday.
