Arabica coffee futures fall while sugar and cocoa advance
- March raw sugar rose 1.1% to 15.84 cents per lb.
- March London cocoa rose by 1% to 1,646 pounds a tonne.
- March arabica coffee fell 0.6% to $1.2265 per lb.
LONDON: Arabica coffee futures on ICE fell on Tuesday after hitting a one-month low in the previous session on increases to ICE-certified stocks and lingering worries that COVID-19 lockdowns are hurting demand.
Sugar and cocoa, meanwhile, both chalked up price gains.
COFFEE
March arabica coffee fell 0.6% to $1.2265 per lb by 1203 GMT after dipping to a low of $1.1875 on Monday.
US branded coffee shops will only return to pre-pandemic sales levels next year after the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out nearly a quarter of their turnover last year, said research and consultancy firm Allegra World Coffee Portal.
Dealers said the recent rise in certified stocks is also weighing on coffee. Certified arabica stocks rose to 1.49 million bags on Monday, their highest since last August.
March robusta coffee fell 0.5% to $1,308 a tonne.
COCOA
March New York cocoa rose 1.1% to $2,457 a tonne as the dollar index slipped, making dollar-priced cocoa cheaper for non-US buyers while coronavirus vaccine rollout hopes kept the mood upbeat in wider financial markets.
Limiting gains in cocoa however, are concerns that coronavirus lockdowns could further curb demand. There has also been talk that cocoa arrivals at ports in top producer Ivory Coast are slowing because warehouses are full, dealers said.
North American grind data, a measure of demand, is due to be released on Jan. 14 and provisional European data on Jan. 20.
March London cocoa rose by 1% to 1,646 pounds a tonne.
SUGAR
March raw sugar rose 1.1% to 15.84 cents per lb, having climbed to 16.33 cents last week, its highest since May 2017.
Dealers said fund buying continues to dominate but warned it might be over-exuberant.
The current market view, they said, is that supplies will remain tight until the next Brazilian harvest, but questions remain over whether this tightness is actual or perceived as demand is likely to remain poor while the COVID-19 pandemic rages on.
March white sugar was up 0.8% at $441.20 a tonne.
Comments
Comments are closed.