London January robusta coffee closed down $95 at $1,320 a tonne on Tuesday, dragged down by a sharp setback in ICE arabicas as funds liquidated longs on a stronger dollar. Harvest progress in top robusta producer Vietnam also weighed on the market. December white sugar in London ends $6.30 lower at $574.80 a tonne, weakened by fund selling across soft commodity markets. New crop figures from Brazil seen mildly supportive.
March cocoa in London ends 34 pounds lower at 2,065 pounds a tonne. Market weighed on strong starts to main crops in Ivory Coast and Ghana and weak industry demand. "The dollar is up a bit and I think funds are liquidating everything across the board and coffee had a particularly long spec position," one dealer said.
Robusta futures were also lower with January off $81 at $1,334 a tonne with harvest progress in top robusta producer Vietnam also weighing on the market. Coffee prices in Vietnam, the world's second largest producer after Brazil, dropped around 3 percent on Tuesday from a week ago after London prices fell, hitting trade at the harvest peak, traders said.
Raw sugar futures also turned lower amid a broad-based decline in soft commodity markets. One sugar dealer said new crop figures from Brazilian cane growers' group Unica, which came in at the lower end of expectations, had not supported the market as much as anticipated.
Sugar output in Brazil's centre-south 2009/10 season totalled 24.7 million tonnes by October 31, up from 22.6 million tonnes by this time last year, the Sugar Cane Industry Association, Unica, said Tuesday. Cocoa futures eased, also pressured by new harvests in West Africa, the world's main growing region. "There is belief in the physical market that the fall in cocoa prices reflects a great attention to fundamental factors," one physical trader said.
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