Arabica coffee futures hit a fresh one-year low on Thursday, pressured by rainfall in top grower Brazil and a stronger dollar, while cocoa eased after brisk bean arrivals in West Africa. Raw sugar futures recovered in a technical bounce from Wednesday's five-year low, with dealers focused on the expiry of the ICE March futures contract on Friday. "There has been a lot of speculative selling in arabicas in February," said Carlos Mera, commodities analyst with Rabobank.
"Considering expectations of a global deficit, I believe that prices cannot go that much lower and that we shall see a recovery this year." May arabica coffee futures fell 1.35 cents, or 1 percent, to $1.4210 per lb at 1440 GMT, having touched $1.4080, the lowest since February, 2014. May robusta coffee eased $14, or 0.7 percent, to $1,872 a tonne. Cocoa futures dipped. "The pace of Ivory Coast cocoa arrivals has accelerated in the second half of the 2014/15 main crop, overtaking last year's arrivals and easing worries over the health of the crop," Ecobank said in its latest Middle Africa cocoa outlook report.
May New York cocoa was down $10, or 0.3 percent, at $2,949 a tonne, having on Wednesday tapped its highest since October at $3,037. May London cocoa traded flat at 1,987 pounds a tonne, having risen on Wednesday to the highest since October 1 at 2,038 pounds. ICE May raw sugar futures were up 0.05 cent, or 0.4 percent, at 13.84 cents a lb, just above Wednesday's session low at 13.75 cents, the lowest level since May 2010, pressured by high stocks. "A resumption of gains on the upside would look to target a close above 14.00 cents before protracted gains attempt to test levels towards the 10-day moving average at 14.55 cents a lb," said Kash Kamal, a research analyst with Sucden Financial.
March raw sugar open interest was 39,071 lots, or nearly 2 million tonnes of sugar, as of Wednesday. Origins such as Central America and north Brazil could feature in the delivery against the expiry, dealers said. May white sugar futures were up $0.90, or 0.2 percent, at $372.50 a tonne.
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