Raw sugar recovers from two-week lows; cocoa, coffee also up

  • December arabica coffee edged up 0.3% to $2.0975 per lb
  • March London cocoa rose 0.2% to 1,824 pounds per tonne
15 Oct, 2021

LONDON: Raw sugar futures on ICE recovered on Friday from two week lows hit in the previous session amid improved sentiment in the wider financial markets and worries over global weather patterns.

Cocoa and coffee edged up meanwhile.

Sugar

March raw sugar rose 1.4% to 19.87 cents per lb at 1109 GMT, having touched its lowest since the end of September at 19.48 on Thursday.

A dealer cited reports from the Climate Prediction Center that La Nina conditions have developed and are expected to continue into the winter.

"Brazilian mill groups are certainly watching this after the year they saw this last season. La Nina developing is no guarantee Brazilian cane will suffer, but it could also bring more rain to India and Thailand," he said.

December white sugar rose 1.6% to $520.90 a tonne.

Raw sugar dips from multi-year highs, coffee also falls

Cocoa

March London cocoa rose 0.2% to 1,824 pounds per tonne, having hit a two week of 1,802 on Thursday.

North American cocoa grindings, an indicator of demand for the chocolate ingredient, rose 4.3% in the third quarter from a year earlier, and just 3.6% when compared with the third quarter of pre-pandemic 2019, data showed.

Dealers said the figures were far worse than expected.

They follow data earlier this week that showed Europe's third-quarter cocoa grind rose 8.7% from a year earlier but only 3.5% from Q3 2019.

December New York cocoa rose 0.8% to $2,604 a tonne, having also hit its lowest in two weeks on Thursday at $2,567.

Coffee

December arabica coffee edged up 0.3% to $2.0975 per lb, having hit $2.1515 on Tuesday, just short of a seven-year peak $2.1520.

January robusta coffee edged up 0.2% to $2,149 a tonne. The contract is nearing a four-year high of $2,180 hit late September.

Commerzbank said it expects the contracts will soon hit their recent multi-year highs again, as global shipping backlogs are sharply cutting exports from Brazil, the world's top arabica producer and second largest robusta grower.

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