NYBOT arabica coffee futures settled mixed in direction's trade on Wednesday as funds resumed switching the front contract for back months, analysts and traders said.
"Most of the activity today was switch related funds rolling out of their Septembers and into Decembers," one trader said. Benchmark September coffee settled up 0.05 cent at 67.10 cents a lb after trading in a narrow range of 67.00 cents to 67.75 cents.
December coffee ended 0.25 cent softer at 70.30 cents after trading between 70.20 cents and 71.20 cents. Traders said most activity was focused on contract switching to December from September ahead of August 23, the first notice day of the September contract.
"We've had continued buying of the (September-December) spread. There was some profit-taking and good volume on switches, but not on outfights," said Fernando De La Roach of Hencoop Coffee Group, referring to straight futures trades.
In weather news, weather service Meteorlogix projected cooler than normal temperatures during the next seven days in Brazil but with "no damaging cold" expected to crops for the world's largest coffee producer.
In technical activity, traders put support for the September contract at 65.50 cents and 62.50 cents with resistance at 68.00 cents and 69.50. Final estimated volume was at 26,873 lots, compared with the previous count of 14,676 lots.
Call volume reached 3,632 lots and puts fetched 1,071 lots. Open interest in the coffee market fell 299 to 94,054 lots as of August 10.