Liffe cocoa higher

Liffe March cocoa ended 45 pounds higher at 1,944 pounds a tonne on Tuesday. Market eyed growing tensions in top grower Ivory Coast with the party of presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara calling for mass street protests later this week. Liffe March white sugar ended up $14.20 at $769.40 per tonne. Gains seen largely driven by technical factors although background support came from downgraded production and export prospects in Australia following heavy rains.
Liffe March robusta coffee ended $11 lower at $1,923 per tonne. Market weighed by an increasing flow of coffee from top robusta Vietnam with the harvest at an advanced stage. An official downward revision in Australian raw sugar exports in 2010/11 was seen as old news and unlikely to drive prices higher on its own, dealers said. Australia has slashed its 2010/11 sugar export forecast by 25 percent after eastern cane fields were flooded during harvesting, destroying crops and decimating yields in the wettest spring on record.
"This official news lagged earlier reports along the same lines. The market is driving higher having broken through the psychological 30 cents a lb level yesterday," said Luke Chandler, analyst with Rabobank. Uncertainty over how much sugar India will export in 2010/11 also supported the market, analysts said. "We've yet to see clarity on Indian export policy," said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, analyst at Barclays Capital.
"If India exports more than 1.5 million tonnes (in open general licence sugar), that bodes negatively for prices," Unnikrishnan added during a presentation to journalists of Barclays Capital's Global Outlook report. "If there is a delay or India exports less than one million or 1.5 million tonnes, prices will likely remain well-supported." "The fundamental situation is still quite bullish," F.O. Licht commodity analyst Stefan Uhlenbrock said. Uncertainty around crop sizes in some the world's largest coffee producers including Vietnam and Colombia have supported higher prices.