Coffee and sugar down

Arabica coffee futures fell to a one-month low in heavy volume on Wednesday as crop flowering in top grower Brazil combined with the widening December/March spread weighed on the market. Raw sugar eased dealings after Brazil's harvest update came in line while cocoa also fell, pressured by expectations of weak demand.
The Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, a global benchmark for commodities, was slightly lower amid concerns about a sluggish world economy, though climbing oil prices due to concerns about supply in the Middle East lifted crude. December arabica coffee futures on ICE dropped 1.85 cents, or 1.1 percent, to finish at $1.6345 per lb, the lowest settlement since September 7 for the second straight day.
"The Brazilian harvest is a very big one. There are also prospects for big crops from Central America," said Stefan Uhlenbrock, a soft commodities analyst with F.O. Licht. Traders said timely flowering of coffee trees in Brazil's coffee belt was better than many had expected, boding well for the 2012/13 crop in the world's biggest producer and adding market pressure.
The spreading widened the discount of the December contract to March The spread closed at a discount of 4.40 cents per lb, the widest in nearly 11 months, from 4.20 cents the previous session. This spreading boosted the session's volume, bringing total volume to around 24,000 lots, up nearly 20 percent from the 30-day average, preliminary Thomson Reuters data showed.
November robusta coffee futures finished up $32, or 1.6 percent, at $2,098 a tonne. Sugar eased in thin dealings, unable to hold the previous session's gains as producer selling weighed, after it failed to break technical resistance at 21.77 cents per lb on Tuesday, following Brazil's industry association harvest update.
ICE March raw sugar futures finished down 0.21 cent, or 1 percent, at 21.26 cents per lb, trading below last week's eight-week high of 21.77 cents. The contract traded on either side of its 100-day moving average around 21.33 cents, as its done for more than a week.
"Sugar is stuck, in the last five days we've traded around a 70 point range," said a London-based broker. "There's some producer selling, mostly against July." December white sugar on Liffe fell $7.90, or 1.3 percent, to close at $590.40 per tonne. Cocoa futures also moved lower with the commodity complex.
March cocoa futures on Liffe ended down 25 pounds, or 1.6 percent, at 1,543 pounds per tonne, weighed by expectations that European grind data due next week will be down. ICE December cocoa closed down $45, or 1.9 percent, at $2,372 per tonne, remaining above its 100-day moving average at $2,359.