New York cocoa futures fell Friday for the second consecutive session on follow-through speculative selling after sharp gains earlier in the week, traders said. "There was some good spec selling, particularly towards the end of the day," said a trader. "We also saw some buying from manufacturers down at the lows."
The New York Board of Trade's front-month March cocoa contract settled down $18 at $1,576 a tonne, after roaming in a trading range from $1,562 to $1,587.
Dealers continued to roll out of the March contract into longer-dated products ahead of its first notice day for delivery on February 14.
Among other contracts, May cocoa lost $19 to end at $1,580 and more distant products shed $17 to $18.
Estimated cocoa futures trading volume reached 10,527 lots, compared with the official 18,210 lots the previous session.
Dealers cited arbitrage-related selling in New York as the dollar recouped losses after Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said market forces and tighter US fiscal policy should stabilise and may cut the US current account gap.
Meanwhile, London cocoa futures finished lower after some speculators dumped their long positions. Liffe's March contract ended down 12 pounds at 853 pounds a tonne.
One trader said a rise in the net non-commercial long position in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Commitments of Traders data - to be released later in the day - could trigger further selling on Monday.
As of January 25 the net non-commercial long position in cocoa futures was 6,187 contracts, CFTC data showed last week.
NYBOT cocoa open interest fell 507 lots to 114,280 lots as of Thursday.
Dan Chesler, an independent technical analyst, put support for March cocoa at $1,555 and then $1,520, with resistance at $1,609 and then between a gap of $1,628 and $1,650.
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