LONDON: Raw sugar futures edged higher on Friday, as light short-covering helped prices climb off lows touched a day earlier, while coffee and cocoa slipped in thin volume as technical pressure weighed.
SUGAR
October raw sugar was up 0.10 cent or 0.76 percent at 13.34 cents per lb by 1135 GMT.
Dealers said the market was supported by speculative short-covering, after prices tumbled nearly 3 percent to their weakest since June 29 in the previous session.
Support was seen as fragile, however, with dealers noting prices need to close above recent lows to pave the way for a recovery.
"A breach of this level would help to confirm the outlook of lower prices," said Geordie Wilkes of Sucden Financial in a market note.
The market's focus was on the Brazilian harvest, with cane industry group Unica set to release Centre-South cane crush figures for the second half of July around 1300 GMT on Friday.
An S&P Global Platts survey of analysts forecast a record crush of 50.69 million tonnes, up 2.6 percent on the year.
Brazilian mills are expected to have allocated 50.4 percent of the cane to sugar, producing 3.39 million tonnes of the sweetener.
October white sugar was also up $2.30, or 0.63 percent, at $368.80 a tonne, having earlier slipped to its lowest since September 2015.
COFFEE
September arabica coffee fell 0.95 cents, or 0.69 percent, to $1.3755 per lb, extending losses from the previous session.
The market slumped 2.8 percent on Thursday as commodity weakness and macro-economic jitters inspired a technical sell-off, reversing much of the gains made in a recent rally.
Dealers pegged the continued weakness on Friday on further technical selling, after prices closed below the key $1.40 support level.
"It has been going up on short-covering by funds but what took the balance back was the macro selling across commodities yesterday," said one dealer. "And we're down again today on follow-through selling on the speculative side."
September robusta coffee fell $3, or 0.14 percent, to $2,133 per tonne.
COCOA
September London cocoa was down 6 pounds or 0.39 percent at 1,532 pounds a tonne, after slipping to a session low of 1,522 pounds.
September New York cocoa fell $5 or 0.25 percent, to $1,962 a tonne.
"We've struggled to find traction through the recent highs," said one dealer. "The market is backing off a little bit."
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