London white sugar futures closed lower on Tuesday, weakened by trade and speculative profit-taking after the recent run-up, dealers said. Liquidation of positions in the October contract, which expires on Thursday, continued to boost volume with most expecting few deliveries. "I don't think it (deliveries) is going to be big," one dealer said.
October closed at $311.00 per tonne, down $4.00 from Monday on a volume of 5,361 lots, while December ended off $3.10 at $300.80 on turnover of 4,244 lots.
India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said the country's sugar output was expected to be 18.1 million tonnes in the new season which begins in October.
COCOA FALL: London cocoa futures fell on Tuesday as technical signals prompted speculative selling, traders said.
"There's speculative selling but there's no news. People are trading on technicals," a trader said.
Liffe's December shed 15 pounds to 838 pounds a tonne and moved 5,065 lots between 834 and 856. Total volume was 8,444 lots.
The market had now lost most of the ground gained from a short-covering rally last week. December peaked at 900 pounds on Friday, a five-week high.
COFFEE LOWER: London's coffee market fell on Tuesday to its lowest in more than 6-1/2 months as speculative and producer selling overwhelmed trade and industry buying, dealers said.
Liffe's second-month November robusta contract closed at $910 a tonne, down 3.3 percent, after hitting a low of $903. Volume stood at 5,358 lots from a total of 9,815.
"At the opening levels we got some industry buying and that cushioned the market, but industry can only buy so much," a trader said, noting funds were involved in the selling. Fund short covering might combine with worries about a disappointing start to the season to push prices up, he added.