NEW YORK/LONDON: Raw sugar futures rose to a two-month high on Wednesday, boosted by fund short covering, while cocoa regained much of the prior session's losses.
SUGAR
* March raw sugar settled up 0.01 cent, or 0.1 percent, at 13.17 cents per lb after touching 13.27 cents, the highest since Nov. 5.
* The recent run-up in prices has been driven by fund short covering against the backdrop of higher oil prices and a strengthening Brazilian real, dealers said.
* Total open interest has fallen for the past five sessions, dropping to a nearly two-week low of 890,199 on Tuesday, ICE data show.
* The extent to which a large net short position has now been covered remains unclear, however, with the continued US government shutdown meaning there have been no weekly Commitment of Traders reports.
* Dry weather in Brazil's key Center-South (CS) region has also been supportive, dealers said.
* March white sugar settled down $1, or 0.3 percent, at $353.8 per tonne.
COCOA
* March New York cocoa settled up $48, or 2.1 percent, at $2,322 per tonne, clawing back some of the previous session's losses.
* May London cocoa settled up 15 pounds, or 0.8 percent, at 1,705 pounds a tonne. In the prior session, the contract slid to a nearly four-week low of 1,674 pounds.
* Prices received some support from positive European grind data, while dealers awaited the release of North American grind data on Thursday.
* Europe's fourth-quarter cocoa grind rose 1.6 percent from the same period last year to 359,103 tonnes, the Brussels-based European Cocoa Association said. Trader estimates had averaged around 3.0 percent
* Europe's grind grew by 4.2 percent for the whole of 2018.
* "Germany had a dampening effect with an increase of only 0.4 percent, though its grinding figure for 2018 as a whole rose by a good 6 percent," Commerzbank said in a market note.
* More small Ivorian cocoa exporters were unable to fulfill their international contracts at the end of last year, and sources at the country's cocoa board told Reuters that this group asked to postpone 70 percent of October-to-December commitments due to a lack of financing.
COFFEE
* March arabica coffee settled up 1.1 cent, or 1.1 percent, at $1.024 per lb. The contract largely erased the prior session's losses, when it dipped to $1.0040.
* "Whenever we get near a dollar (a pound), people cover shorts and possibly go long," said one US trader.
* March robusta coffee settled up $12, or 0.8 percent, at $1,539 per tonne.
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