Arabica coffee falls

Arabica coffee futures on ICE fell on Friday, breaking a seven day streak of gains as the rallying US dollar pressured prices. The currency also weighed on robusta, sugar and New York cocoa. The dollar rallied as much as 1.5 percent against a basket of currency after data showed US job growth accelerated in May, but it later pared gains, taking soft commodity prices off their lows.
Though the greenback pushed arabica prices lower on the day, they closed the week up 7 percent, their biggest gain since mid-March, on heavy short-covering and in response to Neumann Kaffee Gruppe's Brazil crop forecast, which was at the low end of other estimates. July arabica coffee fell 0.6 cent, or 0.4 percent, to settle at $1.351 per lb, trading on both sides of the 40-day moving average. Mike Nugent, president of brokerage MJ Nugent & Co in Sonoma, California, noted that coffee's move was small when compared with the dollar's rally.
"The 40-day moving average reminds us that we are pretty much in the middle of the range," Nugent said. "This tends to drain confidence and no broad consensus has developed about the upcoming Brazil crop." Brazil's government crop supply agency Conab is scheduled to issue its second forecast for Brazil's 2015/16 coffee crop early on Tuesday. July robusta ended down $8, or 0.5 percent, at $1,728 a tonne, and closed the week up 5.9 percent, also its strongest performance since mid-March. In New York cocoa, heavy July/September spreading continued to boost New York volume. The spread rose to a $5 per tonne premium after falling to a $1 discount on Thursday for the first time in nearly a year.
New York July cocoa closed up $1, or 0.03 percent, at $3,116 per tonne, after trading down 1.6 percent to the session low at $3,064 on pressure from the weak sterling. July London cocoa closed up 10 pounds, or 0.5 percent, at 2,112 pounds a tonne, supported by the weak sterling. Raw sugar futures fell as traders focused on a weaker Brazilian real currency as it boosts incentives for Brazilian producers to sell dollar-denominated sugar. July raw sugar on ICE ended down 0.07 cent, or 0.6 percent, at 12.05 cents a lb. It closed the week higher for the first time in a month. August white sugar eased 80 cents, or 0.2 percent, to finish at $350.70 per tonne.