Sugar and coffee climb

Sugar futures on ICE firmed on Monday, consolidating after the previous session's 5 percent stumble, with some support on delays in shipments in top producer Brazil, while arabica coffee changed direction and climbed nearly 2 percent.
US cocoa finished flat.July raw sugar futures on ICE inched up 0.06 cent, or 0.3 percent, to settle at 20.30 cents a lb. Most-active October finished up 0.18 cent, or 0.9 percent, at 19.93 cents per lb.
"Brazilian origin is delayed because of the late crush of the crop and heavy rains, which will affect yields," said Kona Haque, a soft commodities analyst with Macquarie. A London-based sugar futures broker said, "The main reason for the support in the market is shipping delays from Brazil."
"We believe the market over-reacted to the weather situation in the centre-south of Brazil last week ... and is now viewing the situation further forward," said Nick Penney of brokerage Sucden Financial. Williams shipping agents said in a report last week that the line-up of ships waiting to load sugar in Brazil had fallen by eight from a week earlier to 60 after four vessels cancelled their scheduled pick-ups.
The weather has improved in Brazil, however, preventing the market from making stronger gains. "The weather forecasts for now show that there (will be) two weeks of clear weather, so that's negative," said Michael McDougall, a senior vice president of Newedge USA.
The July/October spread remained active and continued to narrow ahead of the spot contract's expiry on Friday, with a relatively heavy open interest of 75,464 lots as of June 22. London August white sugar turned up $1.70 to close at $587.50 per tonne. Speculators switched to a net long position in ICE raw sugar contracts in the week to June 19 for the first time in seven weeks as the futures market soared to a one-month high, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed Friday. On Liffe, they raised their net long positions in Liffe's white sugar, robusta coffee and cocoa.
September arabica coffee futures climbed 2.85 cents, or 1.8 percent, to close at $1.5875 per lb. Concern that the Brazilian rains, which only recently stopped, may have caused damage to the current crop's quality provided some support to the market. "Depending how many cherries were knocked down and how much effort the producers put into collecting this coffee from the ground, it could affect volume, as well, of the current crop," one US coffee dealer said.
Arabicas moved in an inside day as the market remained rangebound just above last week's two-year low at $1.5010 per lb. "Arabicas are heavily influenced by the broader macroeconomic picture and currency movements," a London-based coffee futures broker said. The Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index reversed course and closed higher after earlier pressure from the firm dollar and US government debt prices, as wheat and corn markets soared.
Robusta coffee futures on Liffe eased, with September closing down $2 at $2,030 a tonne. Cocoa futures on ICE settled flat, with September finishing at $2,102 a tonne after moving in a narrow range from $2,118 to $2,085, its lowest level since June 5. Traders focused on a small West African mid crop, which had a late start, and on development of the main crop in West Africa. Liffe September cocoa futures eased 5 pounds to settle at 1,470 pounds per tonne.