White sugar sets 3-1/2 year high, London cocoa edges up
- March white sugar was up $3.90, or 0.8%, at $465.60 per tonne.
- March London cocoa rose 6 pounds, or 0.35%, to 1,740 pounds a tonne.
- March robusta coffee was down $12, or 0.9%, at $1,341 a tonne.
LONDON: White sugar futures on ICE rose to a 3-1/2 year high on Monday, buoyed by fund buying against the backdrop of short-term supply tightness while London cocoa prices edged higher.
US-based raw sugar, arabica coffee and New York cocoa futures contracts were shut on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and will reopen on Tuesday.
SUGAR
March white sugar was up $3.90, or 0.8%, at $465.60 per tonne at 1309 GMT after peaking at $466.40, the highest since May 2017.
Dealers said poor crops in Thailand and the European Union had helped to tighten supplies.
The prospect of lower imports by China in coming months could, however, ultimately help to cap prices.
"That possibility - of shrinking Chinese imports - is what makes us think that the current price surge is getting ahead of itself from a fundamental point of view," broker Marex Spectron said in a weekly update.
"But the sugar market is small and the amount of money sloshing around the world's markets is huge."
COCOA
March London cocoa rose 6 pounds, or 0.35%, to 1,740 pounds a tonne.
The market was boosted by better-than-expected fourth quarter grind data from North America and Asia. The European grind is due to come out on Wednesday.
The second wave of the global coronavirus pandemic has hit Ivory Coast's cocoa trading and exports hard, dashing hopes of an early recovery from the first wave, the director of the country's cocoa regulator CCC said on Sunday.
COFFEE
March robusta coffee was down $12, or 0.9%, at $1,341 a tonne.
- Dealers noted a pick-up in selling out of top robusta producer Vietnam is expected ahead of next month's Tet holiday.
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