US cocoa futures finished lower on Monday after continued speculative selling and the market may come under renewed pressure over the next few sessions, market sources said. "There's scale-down trade and manufacture buying (but the) specs continue to liquidate. (There's) still a high degree of speculative longs in the market," a dealer said.
The New York Board of Trade's benchmark cocoa contract for September closed down $19, or 1.2 percent, at $1,483 per tonne, after moving between $1,475 and $1,503. The deferred contracts all lost $17. "The market is still trying to find a bottom," a trader said. "It could be anywhere between $1,480 and $1,460."
September cocoa had fallen sharply recently as funds dumped huge long positions built up during the market's rally to 16-month highs between mid-June and mid-July.
The sell-off was triggered by the doubling of non-commercial net long positions in cocoa for the week of July 11, according to data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. NYBOT estimated volume before the close Monday reached 15,221 lots, up from Fridays's 9,616 lots. Liffe's September cocoa contract LCCU6 fell three pounds Monday to 859, down 0.35 percent.
Cocoa arrivals in the ports of top grower Ivory Coast amounted to around 1.305 million tonnes from October 1 and July 23, from 1.273 million tonnes delivered at the same time a year ago.