NEW YORK: Arabica coffee futures on ICE climbed on Monday to their highest level in over a week, bolstered by expectations of reduced output from Brazil and Central America, though a weak Brazilian currency capped gains.
London-based markets were closed on Monday for a bank holiday.
COFFEE
* December arabica settled up 1.45 cents, or 1.5%, at 97.50 cents per lb.
* Prices were underpinned by expectations of reduced production in top-grower Brazil, dealers said.
* Brazilian coffee cooperatives said in a statement on Monday that poor weather conditions would negatively affect the 2019 and 2020 crop.
* Dealers said prices were also supported by expectations of reduced output in Central America thanks to inadequate rain and reduced fertilizer use in the region.
* Still, gains were limited by a weak Brazilian currency. The real slid to its weakest level against the US dollar in 11 months after data showed a current account deficit of $9 billion in July, far wider than the $5.9 billion shortfall forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
* A weak Brazilian real encourages producer selling of dollar-denominated commodities like coffee and sugar.
COCOA
* December New York cocoa was unchanged from the previous session, settling at $2,238 per tonne, after earlier hitting a two-week peak of $2,279 in part on speculative short covering.
* Speculators hiked their net short position in cocoa on ICE Futures US in the week to Aug. 20 to a three-month high, US government data showed on Friday.
* Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast totaled 2.143 million tonnes between the beginning of the season on Oct. 1 last year and Aug. 25 this year, exporters estimated on Monday, up from 1.916 million tonnes in the same period last season.
* Above-average rain last week was expected to boost the start of Ivory Coast's October-to-March main cocoa crop but high humidity has aided the spread of disease, farmers said on Monday.
SUGAR
* October raw sugar settled down 0.04 cent, or 0.4%, at 11.43 cents per lb.
* Prices have been mostly rangebound in recent sessions, caught between signals of excess near-term supply and longer-term expectations of a deficit.
* The European Union's crop monitoring service, MARS, on Monday cut its forecast for sugar beet yields this year, to 71.5 tonnes per hectare from 73.9 last month and 4.9% below the average of the past five years but still 3.3% above last year's drought-affected yields.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.