London white sugar futures closed higher on trade and speculative buying in light trade on Friday, traders said. Benchmark May futures settled up $10.70 or 2.5 percent at $448.00 per tonne, near the top of the day's range of $437.00 to $449.40 in volume of 2,252 lots.
August ended up $9.70 at $443.50.
Total volume was 3,446 lots.
"We have seen trade and speculator buying, but there has been no depth in the market," one trader said.
Physical offtake appeared to be strong, and the market focused on how much of the next centre-south Brazilian cane crop would be allocated to biofuel ethanol production, traders and analysts said.
COFFEE TOUCH HIGHER: Liffe robusta coffee futures closed marginally higher on Friday in quiet trade balanced between industry buying and producer selling, dealers said.
Benchmark May robusta ended up $3 at $1,223 a tonne, while spot March rose $5 to $1,205.
Total volume was 4,504 lots.
"(The market) is not going up because of origin selling and it isn't going down because of industry buying. So we're evenly balanced," a trader said.
Dealers said prices had tested resistance near the top end of the recent $1,243-$1,169 range earlier in the week. Prices peaked at $1,238 on Tuesday.
Carnivals in Latin America and many European countries cut business volumes in Europe's physical coffee market this week, traders said.
COCOA ENDS HIGHER:
London cocoa futures closed stronger on Friday on profit-taking on short positions, dealers said, after hitting a three-and-a-half month low around midday.
Benchmark May closed up 9 pounds to 876 pounds in volume of 5,529 lots, just below the day's high of 877 pounds. It had earlier dipped to 858 pounds, the lowest level for the contract since November 18.
"It was just a bit of profit-taking (on short positions) at the end of the day, a bit of book-squaring...which pushed the market higher," one trader said.
"There are no real sellers around, specs have sold what they wanted to sell during the day," he added.
Front-month March finished up 11 pounds at 859.
Total volume was 15,153 lots.
Rains in Ivory Coast's main cocoa-growing regions in late February favoured development of the April-September mid crop, farmers and analysts said.
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