Arabica coffee climbs to more than seven-week high

NEW YORK/LONDON: Arabica coffee futures on ICE rose on Tuesday to their highest levels since early April, boosted by technically driven buying against the backdrop of some weather concerns in top grower Brazil.

COFFEE

* July arabica coffee settled up 2.75 cents, or 3%, at 96.05 cents per lb after peaking at 96.45 cents, its highest since April 4.

* Buying accelerated as prices broke through the previous session's high of 95 cents.

* The contract has risen in three of the past five sessions, supported by concerns about cold weather in parts of Brazil.

* "There could be some cold weather this week, though no one is sure if we're going to get an actual frost. But we are entering that season where there's a potential for a frost ... (so) we need to get a little weather premium into the market," said one US trader.

* A firmer Brazilian currency was also supportive. A firmer real can discourage producer selling of dollar-denominated commodities such as coffee.

* July robusta coffee settled up $4, or 0.3%, at $1,372 per tonne.

SUGAR

* July raw sugar settled up 0.09 cent, or 0.8%, at 11.75 cents per lb.

* The market was underpinned by continued strong demand for hydrous ethanol in Brazil, which encourages the use of cane for the production of ethanol rather than sugar, dealers said.

* Fund short covering could give added impetus to the rebound from a 7-1/2 month low of 11.36 cents set on May 21.

* "The funds net short has now broken its record from last year and the fundamentals are shifting incrementally in a bullish direction," broker Marex Spectron said in a report.

* Speculators hiked their raw sugar net short position on ICE Futures US in the week to May 21 to an eight-month high, US government data showed on Friday.

* August white sugar settled up $1.20, or 0.4%, at $325.60 per tonne.

COCOA

July New York cocoa settled down $17, or 0.7%, at $2,450 per tonne.

* Earlier, the contract matched the previous session's 10-month high of $2,478 on speculative buying against the backdrop of strong global demand and potentially lower output from second-largest producer Ghana.

* Ghana's cocoa regulator Cocobod will issue up to $2 billion in long-dated debt to fund road construction and refinance existing loans, its deputy chief executive for finance said.

* Below-average rainfall last week in most of Ivory Coast's cocoa-growing regions could cause the mid-crop to decline, farmers said.

* July London cocoa settled down 4 pounds, or 0.2%, at 1,785 pounds per tonne.