Cocoa futures fell for the third consecutive session on Tuesday to a one-month low, depressed by speculative selling and spread trading in line with softer bean values in London, market sources said.
The New York Board of Trade's active cocoa contract for July delivery fell $14, or 0.9 percent, to settle at $1,501 a tonne, after trading from $1,498 to $1,522. It was the weakest settlement since April 24.
"As the specs sold July, the spreads (with other positions) moved out and there was a lot of business done," a trader said from the NYBOT cocoa ring.
But, when the July contract moved below $1,500, the trader added: "The industry was waiting with both hands to buy the market." Among other cocoa deliveries, September shed $12 to conclude at $1,526 a tonne, and back months slid $11 to $12.
In London, the Life's July cocoa contract lost 8 pounds to finish at 846 pounds a tonne, near the bottom of a trading range from 845 to 856 pounds. One trader at a US commodity brokerage said he had doubts the futures market has much upside potential with strong mid crops in West Africa, the No 1 growing region, even though price quotes for physical cocoa were still relatively high.
"This is the time of the year when we are in the middle of the mid crop in West Africa, so you are going to have regular offers there," said another trader at a New York-based commodity brokerage.
"Ghana remains a forward seller, so people are expecting them to come to the market at some point. The expectation is that they are close, but it's difficult to time exactly when it happens," he said.
Traders said final cocoa futures trading volume was an estimated 12,570 lots on the NYBOT, above the 8,929 contracts officially tallied the previous session.
Comments
Comments are closed.