LONDON: Arabica coffee futures on ICE rose on technically driven buying on Friday, buoyed by uncertainty over crop losses in top producer Brazil due to drought, while raw sugar and cocoa were little changed.
May arabica coffee futures on ICE were up 1.4 cents or 0.8 percent at $1.7600 per lb at 1033 GMT.
"There is still a lot of uncertainty as to the extent of the losses to the arabica crop in Brazil," said Stefan Uhlenbrock, a senior soft commodities analyst with F.O. Licht.
"I think the complete extent of the losses may not become known until at least August when most of the harvesting is complete." July robusta coffee futures on Liffe were up $34 or 1.7 percent at $2,048 a tonne in moderate volume of 4,123 lots.
Raw sugar futures on ICE were little changed, with dealers increasingly concerned about the possible impact of El Nino on harvesting later this year.
"The market would seem to need to come down to meet physical demand, particularly now as new season centre-south Brazilian supplies will be available shortly (on top of Central Americans, Thais, Indian and Australian sugar), so there is no shortage," said Tom McNeill of Green Pool Commodiities.
"Stocks are high, there is ample unshipped and unsold sugar in Thailand and India, high stocks in China, and higher prices seem to have scared off physical buyers," he added.
Sugar prices have risen by around 5 percent since the start of the year as dry weather in Brazil has trimmed crop prospects and prompted some speculators to add long positions betting on higher prices.
May raw sugar futures on ICE edged down 0.03 cent or 0.2 percent to 17.15 cents a lb, while July dipped 0.05 cent or 0.3 percent to 17.56 cents.
May white sugar futures on Liffe were unchanged at $460.20 a tonne.
Cocoa was little changed, as traders focused on European grind data, a measure of demand, due on April 10. "Traders don't want to do anything up until they see what the European grind data looks like," said Eric Sivry, head of agri options brokerage at Marex Spectron.
July cocoa on Liffe was up 2 pounds or 0.1 percent at 1,854 pounds a tonne.
May cocoa on ICE edged up $5 or 0.2 percent to $2,922 a tonne.
Comments
Comments are closed.