NEW YORK:Arabica coffee futures closed up more than 2 percent on Monday, on profit-taking by dealers who held short positions following a recent decline, while US cocoa dropped on heavy May/July spreading.
Raw sugar closed down a shade in sideways dealings.
RAW SUGAR
* May raw sugar futures on ICE dropped 0.13 cent to finish at 24.58 cents per lb.
* Market adrift in a range, lacks leads - brokers.
* Most dealings in switch trade as players move positions out of spot May since it will expire on April 30.
* Alex Oliveira, senior sugar analyst for brokerage Newedge USA, said sugar seems pinned between 24 and 26 cents, basis spot month.
* Most in trade waiting for start of the cane harvest in the center-south cane region of top producer and exporter Brazil.
* Cash business quiet, trades takes note of the 25,000 tonnes of sugar from ED&F Man.
ARABICA COFFEE
* May arabicas rose 3.75 cents, or 2.1 percent, to finish at $1.8620 per lb.
* Market extended its gains from Friday, when it rallied about 4 percent after the Brazilian government announced it will increase the credit it gives to farmers there.
* Market supported by profit-taking by dealers holding short positions - traders.
* "Specs are buying coffee back at $1.85, so they're making a lot of money on coffee." - Nick Gentile, chief trading officer at Atlantic Capital Advisors, a commodity fund in New Jersey.
* Speculators trimmed their net short position by 1,536 contracts to 19,008 contracts, in the week ending March 28 - US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data Friday.
COCOA
* May cocoa contract fell $32, or 1.4 percent, to finish at $2,187 a tonne.
* Total volume reached 43,197 lots, the highest since Feb 3 - preliminary Thomson Reuters data.
* May/July spreading dominated the session and boosted volume - traders.
* Spreading due to first notice day for May approaching on April 17 - ICE.
* The total bags of cocoa reported by ICE Futures US inched up 1,728 bags to 5,393,598 bags on March 30, the highest since on ICE's records that date back to 1986.
* Large stocks weighed on the market - traders.
* Cocoa purchases declared to Ghana's sector body Cocobod reached 717,171 tonnes by March 22 since the start of the 2011/2012 season last October - Cocobod sources.
* Indonesia's cocoa bean exports from its main growing island of Sulawesi slumped 69 percent to 3,505.66 tonnes in March from 11,132.01 tonnes a year earlier - industry data.
* Barry Callebaut, the world's largest chocolate products maker, reported a fall in first-half profits on Monday partly due to investments to boost production capacity and was cautious about prospects for its main markets.
* Speculators cut their net short position by 2,444 lots to 18,892 lots by March 28 - CFTC data Friday