Liffe coffee moves up

Speculator interest and thin offers combined to push up London robusta coffee on Thursday to the highest in more than a week, traders said. Liffe's most-active May futures contract gained $7 to $1,002 a tonne after touching a session high of $1,012 - the top price since $1,020 on March 22. The day's low was $982. "New York locals are trying to push it up to yesterday's high and in London it looks like speculative buying and lack of selling," one dealer said. Volume in London totalled 7,511 lots, with May accounting for 4,543 lots.
July also closed $7 stronger at $1,031 a tonne following turnover of 2,140 lots.
Robusta has fallen from a five-week high of $1,125, basis May, reached earlier in March, after a pick up in the dollar encouraged funds to lighten their commodities investments.
A bullish tone has re-emerged among some traders, though, with talk of a recovery to recent highs and even new peaks.
SUGAR CLOSES HIGHER: London white sugar futures closed higher on Thursday as fund and trade buyers capitalised on the previous session's eight-month lows and investors squared positions at the end of the first quarter, dealers said.
London's May white sugar settled $2.90 higher at $254.40 a tonne on volume of 3,707 lots. It traded between $251.50 and $255.50, up from Wednesday's eight-month low of $249.30.
August closed $2.60 higher at $250.40 on volume of 3,286 lots. It touched $246.50 in the previous session - its lowest since last August.
"Good fund buying and trade buying on the May/August spread pushed it up," one dealer said.
The end of the year's first quarter and the pending start of the new tax year triggered activity as investors squared or rolled positions forward, dealers said.
"It was due to go up technically. New York was up and it is the end of the month and the first quarter - you get short covering and you have to square your books," a dealer said.
New York May sugar was up 0.13 cents to 8.68 cents a lb by 1741 GMT on month-end and quarter-end speculative short-covering and talk of consumer buying, dealers said.