Cocoa futures trading on ICE Futures US fell sharply for the second straight day early Tuesday, touching a 3-week low, as speculators liquidated long positions, while arabica coffee futures gyrated around the unchanged mark, traders said.
"Specs are dumping long positions. I've got to believe industry is buying scale (down)," one cocoa trader said. The benchmark ICE May cocoa contract plummeted $127, or 4.7 percent, to $2,603 per tonne by 9:16 am EDT (1316 GMT), trading from $2,688 to $2,594, a low dating back to February 25.
In the top cocoa producer Ivory Coast, dock workers suspended a week-old strike over pay that had blocked cocoa and coffee exports and said they were opening negotiations with the government and exporters. In Brazil, the No 1 coffee grower, producers have sold 83 percent of the 37.1 million 60-kg bag 2007/08 crop by February 29, up from 72 percent sold of the bigger crop a year ago, private analysts Safras e Mercado said on Monday.
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