CSCE cocoa futures closed down on Wednesday after an erratic and choppy session, with speculators and arbitrage players capping an early rally that followed London's gains, brokers said.
"The market gapped up to match the gains in London and then we pulled back as producers sold in London and arbitrage and speculative selling was seen in New York," said Luis Rangel, a trader with Fimat USA, Inc.
Active March cocoa closed down $19 at $1,581 a tonne after trading $1,578 to $1,615.
Cocoa futures jumped 4.6 percent on Tuesday as the chocolate industry bought in a market that had declined in the latter part of January on improved crop forecasts for top producer Ivory Coast. But traders said the chocolatiers did not support prices today.
Foreign-based pod counters said last week that Ivory Coast's main cocoa crop (October-March) is expected to reach 1,060,000 tonnes, higher than forecasts by local officials.
Looking ahead to the end of the week when the March 2004 cocoa options expire, traders said that with the largest concentration of open positions in the $1,450 puts and the $1,600 and $1,700 calls, they expected the market to trade sideways the next two days.
May cocoa fell $21 to close at $1,569 and the back months finished the day $23 to $29 lower.
Estimated volume came to some 9,057 contracts Wednesday boosted by 2,370 exchange for swaps (EFS) and 1,785 switches as traders rolled or moved positions out of the nearby March contract ahead of the February 13 first notice day. Some 9,675 lots changed hands on Tuesday.
In the options pit 1,211 calls and 452 puts traded. Brokers said the May $1,500 calls were active.
On the fundamental front, cocoa exports from Ivory Coast's ports totalled 512,816 tonnes from the start of the 2003/04 (October-September) season to January 18, down some 29 percent from the same period of the previous campaign, data showed on Wednesday.
The figures from the Coffee and Cocoa Bourse (BCC) also showed exports in the period January 1-18 reached 113,085 tonnes, including 14,034 tonnes of cocoa in bean equivalent exported by grinders.
Comments
Comments are closed.