London coffee climbs

London robusta coffee futures climbed to a one-month high on Wednesday, breaking out of a recent trading range on the back of a higher arabicas market, while white sugar firmed and cocoa was little changed.
A record high in crude oil above $132 a barrel generated little new buying interest in soft commodities, unlike earlier this year when rallies in energy markets would routinely spark buying in softs and other commodities markets.
"It's very evident that the index funds and the big speculators around the world are not really concentrating on these markets at the moment," said Jonathan Boyden, head of sugar trading at Ambrian Capital UK. A midday rally in ICE arabica futures sparked fund and investor buying in the robusta market, which touched off buy-stops and helped lift the benchmark July contract out of a recent narrow range to a four-week high.
July ended up $32 or 1.4 percent at $2,311 per tonne in a volume of 10,457 lots. Dealers said buy-stops were triggered as the contract rose above $2,300, a resistance point, which had been difficult to penetrate for several weeks. "It made a bit of a break, but it was all speculatively driven. It managed to get above 140 (cents per lb) in New York and $2,300 (per tonne) in London and it touched off some stops on the way up," one trader said.
Brazil, the world's largest coffee exporter, will export at least 29 million 60-kg bags equivalent of coffee over the 2008/09 (July/June) year, up from 27.5 million bags expected to be shipped in 2007/08, the Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafe) said on Wednesday.
Technical selling dragged London cocoa to 2-1/2 week lows but investor buying lifted the market to a flat close. September settled 1 pound lower at 1,388 pounds per tonne in a moderate volume of 4,423 lots. July was down 9 pounds at 1,406 pounds per tonne with 4,507 contracts traded.
The International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) said on Wednesday it had cut its estimate for the global cocoa deficit in 2007/08 to 41,000 tonnes from a previous forecast of 51,000 tonnes. Cocoa purchases by Ghana's industry regulator Cocobod crossed the 600,000 tonnes initial projection for the season in the first 29 weeks of the 33-week 2007/08 main crop, an industry source said on Wednesday.
White sugar futures advanced to recover early-week losses, but continued to hold in a recent trading range. Benchmark August finished up $6.50 or about 2 percent at $336.50 per tonne in a sizable volume of 2,760 lots. Dealers said the whites premium had been widening, boosted both by demand for whites in the physical market and concern there could heavy deliveries against July raws on ICE.
"There is obviously some offtake. The summer season has started and the Middle East is buying," one dealer said, adding August could move to parity to October. The front month traded at a small discount to October of about $4 to $5 a tonne on Wednesday. Dealers said sugar prices were, however, struggling to respond to a surging crude oil market and a weak dollar.
"You would have thought that might have helped but it doesn't appear to be doing so. We are wallowing just under last week's lows (basis July New York)," one dealer said. July raws had a low last week of 10.85 cents a lb, at the time the contract's lowest level since late December 2007. The front month in New York has fallen further this week despite record crude oil prices and a weak dollar and was trading around 10.68 cents on Wednesday.