US MIDDAY: cocoa futures climb on speculator buying

NYBOT cocoa futures rose more than 2 percent on Wednesday as market concerns about next year's crop production in top growing region West Africa sparked fund and speculator buying, analysts and traders said.
"Looking forward, a few people are becoming increasingly concerned about production in some of the West African countries, and that seems to have inspired some of the buying that we saw in London this morning," one trader said.
Benchmark December cocoa settled up $41, or 2.5 percent, at $1,649 a tonne, trading in a $1,638-$1,675 range.
Spot September climbed $31 to $1,608, just $3 above the low end of a $1,602-$1,650 trading range. Longer dated contracts settled $42 to $43 higher from Tuesday.