LONDON: Raw sugar prices on ICE dipped on Monday but remained firmly within their recent range, while arabica coffee edged up after hitting a series of 13-year lows last week.
SUGAR
* May raw sugar fell 0.07 cent, or 0.6 percent, to 12.70 cents per lb at 1417 GMT.
* The market has been trading in a tight range between about 12 and 13.5 cents since November.
* Sugar prices are poised to stay rangebound for up to a year, said Marex Spectron analyst Robin Shaw. "Sugar is mathematically forced to stay within the ethanol parity (range). It can't go below ethanol parity or above, it's stuck."
* Speculators reduced their net short position in raw sugar by 17,250 contracts in the week to April 9, their smallest net short in about a month.
* India is likely to receive average monsoon rains this year, raising expectations of higher farm output and economic growth in an economy where half of the farmland lacks irrigation.
* August white sugar was up $0.6, or 0.2 percent, at $330.20 a tonne, having hit its highest in just over a week.
COFFEE
* May arabica coffee was up 0.9 cent, or 1 percent, at 91.30 cents per lb, after slumping to a 13-year low of 89.35 cents on Friday amid oversupply, especially from Brazil.
* Colombia will give coffee farmers an additional $32 million in subsidies and tree replacement aid, amid low international prices that have left growers struggling to break even.
* In the week to April 9, speculators cut their bearish stance in arabica coffee by 6,153 lots, the smallest since late February.
* May robusta coffee was up $16, or 1.2 percent, at $1,403 a tonne.
COCOA
* May London cocoa fell 15 pounds, or 0.8 percent, to 1,820 pounds a tonne, having hit a nine-month peak of $1,839 on Friday.
* Speculators sharply reduced their bearish stance on cocoa by 18,778 lots to the smallest in over a month.
* The market's recent run-up has been fuelled by speculative short covering amid now-fading concerns about dry weather in top grower Ivory Coast.
* Cocoa arrivals at Ivory Coast ports reached 1.763 million tonnes between Oct. 1 and April 14, exporters estimated on Monday, up about 14 percent from the same period last season.
* European grind data, an indicator of demand, is set to be released on Tuesday, while North American data is expected on Thursday.
* May New York cocoa was up $9, or 0.4 percent, at $2,433 a tonne, having hit a nine-month high of $2,454 on Thursday.
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