March cocoa at Liffe ended 15 pounds higher at 2,159 pounds a tonne on Wednesday after earlier climbing to a 24-1/2 year peak for the second month of 2,173 pounds. Market buoyed by rise in German third-quarter grind. December white sugar ended $18.70 lower at $586.80 per tonne with the market technically overbought after recent strong advance to a record high for the front month.
November robusta coffee ended $18 higher at $1,437 a tonne on investor buying. "They (grind data) were better than expected," said Ricardo Santos of BNP Paribas Fortis, adding the figures helped London second-month cocoa futures nudge up to the high of 2,173 pounds. Cocoa futures have rallied due to concerns over tight supplies from top producer Ivory Coast, and expectations of rising demand as the global economy recovered.
But traders said the increase in the German grind was more a reflection of increased capacity in Germany and re-stocking. Germany's third-quarter 2009 cocoa grind rose 11.1 percent on the year to 98,315 tonnes, the association of German confectionery producers BDSI said on Wednesday.
Some traders referred to talk that independent analyst Hans Kilian had released a report reducing his forecast for Ivorian output, which they said provided mild support to futures prices. Sugar fell, partly because harvests were rolling in and supply bottlenecks were easing, coming off a recent rally fuelled by worries over excessive rainfall in Brazil and India.
"People have been over-confident about this market," said David Sadler, a senior sugar futures trader. "Despite concerns over Brazil and India, the market still cannot make new highs. We are in a harvest period, and so they (producers) are not going to buy sugar now," he added.
Raw sugar futures doubled this year, mainly due to India's huge appetite for the sweetener after the country, which is the world's no. 1 consumer, shifted to net importer from exporter. Arabica and robusta futures rose on investor buying, supported by the weaker dollar, against a backdrop of a well-supplied global market, dealers said.
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