Cocoa futures posted modest gains on Monday after the holiday break as players feared the threat of fighting in top grower Ivory Coast could disrupt bean supplies, analysts said. New York soft commodity markets were closed last Friday for Christmas. Their counterpart markets in London are shut through Tuesday, reopening on Wednesday.
The key March cocoa contract rose $20 to close at $3,040 per tonne, with total volume around 2,500 lots. "There seems to be further sabre-rattling in Ivory Coast," said Sterling Smith, an analyst for brokerage Country Hedging in St. Paul, Minnesota. "We might be right on the precipice." Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara has called for a nation-wide general strike from Monday to paralyse the country until internationally isolated incumbent Laurent Gbagbo cedes power.
The benchmark March raw sugar contract on ICE Futures US lost 0.34 cent to close at 33.64 cents per lb. Trading volume totalled around 9,000 lots, not even 10 percent of the 30-day average around 110,000 lots, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed. The March arabica coffee contract rose 1.55 cents to finish at $2.3745 per lb.