US outcry cocoa futures settled higher on Wednesday after reaching a fresh 4-1/4-year peak for the second day in a row. "I think we followed the London market today, but it was relatively quiet, to be honest," one trader said. "Cocoa's reacting to a very strong technical picture here."
The New York Board of Trade benchmark September contract rose $5 to settle at $2,022 per tonne. It traded in a range from $2,010 to $2,029, its highest position since mid-March 2003 on a second-month basis.
The NYBOT front-month July contract was unchanged at $2,022, while the rest ranged from $6 to $8 higher. The September contract on the IntercontinentalExchange NYBOT electronic platform was up $2 at $2,019, at 12:39 pm, trading in a band from $1,997 to $2,028. The rest spanned from $2 lower to $3 higher, except for one.
Electronic trading ends at 3:15 pm. In London, the Liffe September contract settled down 2 pounds at 1,097 pounds per tonne, consolidating under the 4-year high hit on Tuesday.
September traded in a band from 1,091 pounds to 1,102 pounds, and the rest settled from down 2 pounds to up 3 pounds.
NYBOT estimated open-outcry volume around noon at 1,754 lots, compared with the 1,636 contracts that traded in outcry on Tuesday, when 18,483 contracts traded on the ICE electronic platform.
The NYBOT and London September cocoa contracts rose above points of key resistance at $2,000 and 1,000 pounds, respectively, Fimat analyst Veronique Lashinski said in a report on Tuesday.
"The medium-term and long-term outlook is bullish. The short-term outlook for (New York) will remain bullish as long as it remains above $1,990," Lashinski added.
In West Africa, cocoa arrivals in the port city of Lagos, Nigeria's main export hub, dropped by half to 5,000 tonnes in May compared with the same month of 2006, an average of estimates by traders showed on Wednesday. The shortfall reflected the trend since October, when the 2006/07 season started in the world's fourth biggest cocoa grower.