CSCE cocoa futures closed lower on Friday, giving up strength, as profit-taking by speculators and light producer selling capped a rally following a constructive European grind figure, brokers said.
"The market opened higher with the better than expected European grind figure but it couldn't hold above on Thursday's high for long with people taking profits and some producer selling," said one broker.
The benchmark March cocoa contract settled $8 lower at $1,597 a tonne on Friday, near the bottom of a $1,590-$1,636 range.
Before New York opened traders learned that the European cocoa grindings rose 6.67 percent to 280,303 tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2003 compared with the year-earlier period, according to the European Cocoa Association (ECA).
The data was well above traders' and analysts' expectations who looked for an unchanged to 3 percent better figure.
The US fourth quarter 2003 grind data are expected on January 23 before the of futures.
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