CSCE sugar crawls to a lower close in quiet trade

CSCE raw sugar futures ended quietly lower on Tuesday as volume disappeared and scale-up trade selling held prices in check, traders said.
"Guys didn't really put their foot on it today because we held support at around 6.10-6.12," said a floor source." It will be interesting tomorrow, if a little selling at the open knocks us through there."
May sugar lost 0.08 cent to settle at 6.16 cents, after moving from 6.12 cents to 6.22 cents. July fell the same to 6.02 cents. Distant months finished down 0.05 cent to 0.07 cent.
Floor sources said there was a lot of scale-up selling in the May and July contracts that pressured prices all day.
"There was not any way for us to push through the 6.25-cent resistance level with the lack of buyer volume today," one trader said.
Analysts noted that commodity funds have recently been building a large net short position in the market.
"The speculative funds' position as of Tuesday, reported on Friday, showed they were still holding a very long gross short position of about 98,000 lots, which is pretty sizeable, but may possibly be reduced some now," said one analyst.
"The question will be where the cut-out point of where these funds will be where they change the speculative fund position from a net short to a net long," he added.
Fundamentally, the prospect of another record crop from Brazil, along with high shipping rates could hinder sugar prices going ahead.
"London white sugar did give a little bit of a reaction, which helped New York briefly during the day, as the current freight table for May came out showing a big increase in freight discount for Brazil," said an analyst.
"It's down from $15 a ton to $27 a ton, effectively making Brazilian delivery against London more difficult."
Technicians said resistance in May was to be around the 6.25-6.30-cent level, while support was placed at 6.10-6.12 cents.
Final estimated volume reached only 18,000 lots, well off on Monday's 26,239 lots.
Open interest in the No 11 sugar market slipped 4,957 lots to 243,606 lots as of March 1. US domestic sugar futures finished mixed on Tuesday.
May sugar was up 0.03 cent to 21.04 cents a lb, while July ended 0.05 cent higher at 21.10 cents. The rest ended from down 0.05 cent to up 0.06 cent.
Final estimated volume reached 451 lots, against the prior tally of 300 lots. The CSCE is a subsidiary of the New York Board of Trade.