Cocoa futures rose for the fourth straight day to nearly a three-week high, bolstered by a technical bounce and by a report of a downward revision in pod counts in cocoa-rich West Africa, traders said on Wednesday.
On the New York Board of Trade, the most-active December cocoa contract jumped $34 to settle at $1,526 a tonne, the highest closing price since the $1,571 settlement on September 3.
The December delivery traded in a range from $1,511 to $1,543 after breaking through key resistance at $1,500 at the open. March 2005 climbed $33 to $1,542, while longer-dated cocoa futures gained $29 to $33 from Tuesday.
"It is a continued technical bounce, especially after we broke through that $1,500 level," one trader said.
Another trader cited talk of an independent pod count report that made a downward revision to its 2004/2005 estimate for crop in Ivory Coast, the world's biggest cocoa producer.