US arabica coffee futures settled lower in choppy trading on Wednesday as the market consolidated after benchmark March soared up a 10-month peak yesterday. "Some of it is just, people don't know what to do. It's relatively high but there's potential to go higher so people are unsure," one trader said.
New York Board of Trade benchmark March coffee closed down 1.45 cents at $1.2580 per lb after trading $1.2420 to $1.2750. May slide 1.40 to $1.2870 after moving in a band from $1.2720 to $1.3025. The rest retreated 0.70 to 1.35 cents.
NYBOT estimated volume at 14,286 contracts, down from Tuesday's tally of 19,263 lots. "There has been continuous origin selling at these prices and there has been a lot of buying too. A lot of roasters have been buying into these high prices," said Rohit Savant, CPM Group commodities analyst.
In London, most-active March settled up $8 at $1,467 per tonne after trading $1,453 to $1,494 on speculative and fund buying while origin selling helped trim gains in late trading, dealers said.
Meanwhile, Brazil exported 2.72 million 60-kg bags of green coffee in November, up 39.1 percent from 1.95 million bags shipped a year ago, the Council of Green Coffee Exporters of Brazil (Cecile) said on Wednesday. Brazil shipped an upwardly revised 2.55 million bags of coffee in October.
For weather, Meteorlogix predicted top coffee producer Brazil would see scattered showers and thundershowers along with seasonable temperatures through the next five days. Despite a sharp rise in coffee prices, Brazilian producers expect the market to climb further and are in no rush to sell heavily, traders said on Wednesday.
Brazil's government sold 98.95 percent of the 40,000 60-kg bags of coffee from federal stocks offered to all industry sectors at a monthly auction on Wednesday, federal Banjo do Brasilia said.