March white sugar ended $9.20 lower at $717.00 a tonne in London on Monday. Market retreating from last week's record peak for the front month of $748.00, weighed by index fund selling of ICE raws linked to annual rebalancing. May cocoa on Liffe ended 8 pounds higher at 2,284 pounds a tonne, boosted by a slowdown in port arrivals in top producer Ivory Coast.
March robusta coffee settled $15 lower at $1,385 per tonne. Market dragged lower by a technically-driven setback in ICE arabicas. Macquarie Bank commodity strategist Kona Haque said an expected rebalancing by index funds which began last week may have provided the trigger for the current setback in sugar.
Index funds have been selling sugar as they seek to adjust their portfolios for 2010. Sugar had become overweight after rising sharply during 2009. "The overbought conditions of late in both (sugar) markets, added to the prospect of more index fund selling on an outright basis, has cooled the bulls ardour," Sucden Financial sugar trader Nick Penney said in a market note.
ICE March raw sugar futures were off 0.39 cent or 1.4 percent to 27.14 cents a lb at 1622 GMT. The benchmark raw sugar contract had risen to a peak of 28.95 cents on Thursday, a 29-year high for the benchmark contract. Haque said she remained bullish for sugar for the next three or four months with prices likely to be boosted by expected strong demand from top consumer India.
"In the second half (of 2010) I start getting quite bearish. We should see a supply response (to high prices) in Brazil and a lot of sugar coming out of Europe as well," she said. Cocoa futures on ICE were higher, boosted by a weaker dollar and a slowdown in port arrivals in top producer Ivory Coast.
Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast rose to around 630,000 tonnes by January 10, but exporters said on Monday they feared lower deliveries in the coming weeks as the main crop tailed off. "Arrivals seasonally are dropping off but I think they have been fairly robust up to now," one dealer said. Dealers said the market was awaiting fourth quarter grind data from both Europe and the US which is expected to be released later this week.
"I think the general consensus appears to be it (the European grind) is going to be a slightly lower figure," one dealer said, adding there was no sign yet of processors restocking aggressively after running down inventories during the economic downturn.