LONDON: Robusta coffee futures on Liffe set a six-week high on Thursday the flow of supplies from top producer Vietnam slowed due to rain and farmers' reluctance to sell, while cocoa also advanced and white sugar edged up.
Business was subdued while ICE coffee, cocoa and sugar contracts were shut for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. They will open at their regular times on Friday and close early at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT).
January robusta coffee futures on Liffe rose $14 to end at $1,628 a tonne after setting a six-week high of $1,630.
"There has been light support in the past week or so from hampered flow of coffee from Vietnam ... but it's no big deal," said Andrea Thompson, an analyst at CoffeeNetwork, part of INTL FCStone.
She added that the Vietnamese harvest would hit the market eventually, so the upside for robustas was limited.
"There may be $50 to $100 on the upside, but at the minute there's no sign of there being any more than that," Thompson said.
"Fundamentally the outlook is for oversupply."
Cloudy weather in Vietnam's Central Highlands coffee belt and rains earlier this month have slowed the harvest, while farmers have been reluctant to sell at current prices.
Benchmark robusta futures on Liffe are still trading around 15 percent below year-ago levels even after the recent run-up.
MORE DOWNSIDE FOR SUGAR
March white sugar on Liffe closed $0.70 or 0.15 percent higher at $461.10. The front month had hit a 3-1/2 year low of $445.70 in mid-November.
"Even though the global price of sugar has already slumped by around a third over the last three years, we think it has further to go," analyst Tom Pugh of Capital Economics said in a market note.
"We expect the U.S. benchmark sugar price to finish 2014 at 15 cents per pound, down from around 17 today, due to continued excess supply and weak demand," he added.
Benchmark March raw sugar futures on ICE closed on Wednesday at 17.22 cents a lb, just above an eight-week low of 17.21 cents set earlier in the session.
March cocoa on Liffe ended 9 pounds or 0.5 percent higher at 1,745 pounds ($2,900) per tonne.
"London cocoa prices struggle to move above immediate resistance around 1,760 pounds, with prices moving lower over the past few sessions," Kash Kamal, research analyst at Sucden Financial, said in a daily note.
"Any resumption of gains will target the 10-day (moving average) before moving on towards 1,788 and then 1,800 if momentum holds."
Comments
Comments are closed.