US open-outcry arabica coffee settled lower on Thursday on speculative fund liquidation while weakness in other markets pressured bean prices, traders said. "There is a lot of weakness across the board, gold is down 11 bucks, silver is down," a dealer for a trading house said.
The New York Board of Trade open-outcry benchmark September dropped 2.80 cents to end at $1.114 a lb., in a trading band from $1.11 to $1.15. The rest finished in a range from 2.50 to 2.75 cents lower. On the ICE NYBOT electronic platform at 2:50 pm, September coffee was 3.10 cents lower at $1.110 a lb., in dealings from $1.110 to $1.150.
There was strong technical support for coffee at $1.10 a lb., traders said Top coffee producer Brazil will have mostly dry conditions through on Sunday, with the possibility of a light rain or drizzle on Friday and Saturday, DTN Meteorlogix said.
Robusta futures in London ended lower, with the Liffe September robusta coffee contract $35 lower at $1,801 per tonne. In related news, Vietnam will sell 44.3 percent more coffee in the first 10 months of the current crop year than the same period last year, the Vietnamese government said on Thursday.
NYBOT estimated open-outcry volume at 4,860 lots, versus the prior tally of 2,945 lots. On Tuesday, a larger-than-normal volume of 25,122 contracts was seen on the ICE screen, with 8,787 lots officially tallied in floor trade.