New York coffee futures sag

Benchmark coffee futures ended down 2.2 percent on Tuesday, pressured by weak technical signals after speculators failed to nudge the active contract above the previous session's peak trade, market sources said.
The New York Board of Trade's benchmark May arabica contract shed 2.40 cents to settle at $1.0705 a lb, near the bottom of a trading range from $1.0690 to $1.1070 - this week's top trade and the loftiest price in about a month.
"We had a double top at $1.1070 and that brought in technical selling and long liquidation," said a trader at a coffee trading company.
He pegged near-term technical support in the May contract at $1.06 and then $1.0350. If the contract gets above $1.1070 the next technical resistance would be $1.15, the trader added.
Among other arabicas, July fell 2.40 cents to end at $1.0995 and back-month contracts lost 2.15 to 2.35 cents.
Other commodity markets slumped on Tuesday.
The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 commodity futures was down 3.26 points at 332.35 at 1:45 pm EDT (1745 GMT).
On the supply front, exports from several countries in arabica-rich Central America were sharply down in March versus the same month a year ago.
Still, a forthcoming harvest in top coffee producer Brazil will keep hedging pressure on the market, said a coffee trader at a commodities brokerage.
"We are in a relatively tight (supply) situation but not overly so that it leads to a market rally. We still have the Brazil crop coming in and people are saying 'we have enough to get by until then,'" the trader said.
In Central America, Costa Rica's March exports fell 8.2 percent from the same month in 2005, the Costa Rican Coffee Institute ICAFE said on Tuesday.
Coffee officials on Monday reported Guatemalan bean exports in March slipped 8.5 percent from a year ago, while El Salvador's exports dropped 22.7 percent in March compared with a year earlier. Both countries have suffered crop losses due to natural disasters last year.
Top coffee producer Brazil will release a second estimate for the 2006/07 (July/June) crop on Friday.
In December, Brazilian crop officials projected the harvest between 40.4 million and 43.6 million bags, higher than the 32.9 million bags of the 2005/06 season.
A recent Reuters poll of US and European industry sources showed Brazil's 2006/07 crop will amount to 43.9 million bags.
Trading volume on NYBOT amounted to an estimated 18,903 contracts, down from the 21,300 lots officially tallied for Monday.