Raw sugar edges away from 10-month low, coffee falls

Raw sugar futures on ICE were higher on Thursday, regaining some ground after a recent slide to a 10-month low while coffee and cocoa prices were slightly lower. May raw sugar was up 0.10 cents, or 0.6 percent, at 17.40 cents a lb at 1506 GMT. The front month dipped to a low of 17.02 cents on Wednesday, its weakest since May 2016. The market's decline has been driven by fund selling, a favourable production outlook in top grower Brazil and diminishing prospects for Indian imports.
"One dull day is not enough to muffle the sugar market's momentum so the weak bias remains for now," said analyst Tobin Gorey of Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
May white sugar rose $4.20, or 0.9 percent, to $492.50 a tonne.
Sugar imports by China, the world's top buyer of the sweetener, jumped 70.3 percent in February from the year before to 180,000 tonnes, customs data showed on Thursday.
May arabica dropped 0.45 cents, or 0.3 percent, to$1.4125 per lb while May robusta fell $1, or 0.05 percent, to $2,163 a tonne.
Dealers said arabica supplies had been boosted by larger crops in Colombia and parts of Central America but the robusta market remained tight, particularly in Brazil.
A reverse auction on Wednesday that aimed to attract eventual suppliers of robusta coffee in Brazil failed to close any deals, according to the official agency providing the auction's platform and the country's instant coffee industry.
"Even when the bids came above current market prices for robusta, there were no deals, which reinforces the reality of a very tight market," Aguinaldo Lima, a director at Brazil's instant coffee producers association told Reuters.
Vietnam's coffee export market was quiet this week with prices tightening on limited supply of high-quality beans, while Indonesia saw brisk trade due to higher supplies at the onset of the harvest season, traders said on Thursday.
Cocoa futures were marginally lower with May London off 2 pounds, or 0.1 percent, at 1,742 pounds a tonne and May New York down $1 or 0.05 percent to $2,164 a tonne.
Dealers said prices were consolidating after a recent sharp rally which saw the New York market pull away from a 9-1/2 year set earlier this month.
The upside remained capped by plentiful supplies with a large global surplus anticipated in the current season.