Raw sugar drops

Raw sugar futures on ICE fell for the fifth straight session on Tuesday, after a corrective rally failed to hold momentum as concerns about a supply overhang persisted, while robusta coffee fell to the lowest since late-May on chart-based weakness. Arabica coffee also dropped modestly for the fifth straight day while cocoa was little changed.
October raw sugar settled down 0.02 cent, or 0.2 percent, at 11.42 cents a lb, after initially rallying 2.5 percent. The move lower was modest compared with Monday's 4.3 percent tumble. October whites firmed by 40 cents, or 0.1 percent, to end at $348.30 a tonne. Dealers talked of big Thai and Indian sugar stocks overhanging the market and that expectations of a lower cane output figure for center-south Brazil in the first half of July, to be announced later this week, appeared to be priced in by the market.
Data supplier Platts said it expects a cane crush of 31.29 million tonnes in the first half of July. "The sugar bulls have been torpedoed in the last few sessions and their general long-term story of perceived reduced surpluses going forward has not been played out in the price action," said Thomas Kujawa, co-head of the softs desk at Sucden Financial Sugar. Robusta coffee futures dipped after the failure of Monday's one-minute rally to hold was viewed as technically weak. Traders focused on the expiry of the front-month July contract on July 31, with shorts potentially having to pay a huge premium to cover positions.
September robusta finished down $14, or 0.8 percent, at $1,664 a tonne, the lowest since May 29. September arabicas ended down 1.5 cents, or 1.2 percent, at $1.2595 per lb. December London cocoa closed unchanged at 2,218 pounds a tonne, while September New York cocoa finished down $17, or 0.5 percent, at $3,336 a tonne. Both contracts remained within sight of their highest levels since March 2011, reached last week after rising on speculative buying and concerns over the potential production impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon.