Liffe coffee jumps

Most soft commodity markets staged a recovery rebound on Wednesday but investor nerves were skittish due to the nuclear plant crisis that threatened a Japan already reeling from a killer quake and tsunami. Japan's nuclear crisis seemed to be spiralling out of control after workers withdrew briefly from a stricken plant because of surging radiation levels and a helicopter failed to drop water on the most troubled reactor.
"We have seen ags (agricultural commodities) moving up across the board but it's too early to say we're out of the woods. Macroeconomic sentiment remains fragile," said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, analyst at Barclays Capital. "The markets will remain vulnerable to swings."
Sean McGillivray, head of asset allocation at Great Pacific Wealth Management, said the next move of the market will be dictated by the crisis in Asia along with unrest across the Middle East. "A lot of it has to do with what we'll see in Japan." he said, adding the Middle East retains the "potential of being a tremendous catalyst" for the crude market. London's Liffe May cocoa futures shed 19 pounds to close at 2,102 pounds a tonne.
London's May robusta futures jumped $115 to trade at $2,490 per tonne. Dealers pointed to bearish factors weighing on sugar such as more of the crop than expected still awaiting harvest in Thailand, expectations of a big center-south Brazilian cane harvest, and talk India could potentially export a sizeable tonnage of sugar."We are rather bearish on sugar. It has to do with our expectations for a good harvest in Brazil in the centre-south," Gunter Tschiderer, a commodities fund manager with Sigma Commodities, said at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit.
An export ban, sanctions against the country and a crippled banking system have left the Ivorian cocoa industry at a standstill. "The problem has been for the exportable supply and what's going to happen to the stocks waiting at ports," Unnikrishnan said. "The impact is going to be on trade flows rather than production."