New York soft commodities plunge

Soft commodity futures were hammered Tuesday by a wave of risk-aversion sales spawned by Japan's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear plant crisis that further threatened the island nation. The selling spree deflated raw sugar values in New York by over 8 percent, dropped cocoa more than 5.5 percent, and pushed arabica coffee more than 4 percent lower.
"All markets are in the red as everyone is trying to take their risk off," said Keith Flury, a senior analyst at Rabobank. New York's May cocoa contract dove $134, nearly 4 percent, to end at $3,255 a tonne, its lowest finish since February 7. The May arabica coffee contract fell 10.70 cents to close at a one-month low at $2.6245 a lb. New York's May raw sugar contract on ICE Futures US sank 2.14 cents, or by 7.7 percent, to end at a three-month low at 25.65 cents per lb. Raw sugar slid below key support at 27 cents, triggering further selling by investors, funds and producers.