US cocoa futures closed firmer on Tuesday, unable to break through resistance and marking a double top as origin selling capped gains spawned by fund buying, dealers said. The second-month contract, which has significantly less open interest than the most-active spot contract, closed at a five-year high on a continuation chart.
"Ghana was in the market and there was fund buying. Technically it failed against a recent high, not a lot of momentum," one cocoa trader said. Ghana is the world's No 2 cocoa producer. In open-outcry, the key ICE March cocoa futures contract settled $22 higher at $2,235 per tonne. May end up $24 at $2,259 which was the loftiest closing price for the second month since February 2003.
The rest finished in a range from $17 to $22 higher. On the screen, ICE March was up $18 at $2,231 by 12:56 pm EST (1756 GMT), in dealings from $2,202 to $2,237. One contract aside, the rest were up from $18 to $22 after setting fresh lifetime highs. March hit a double top at $2,237 a key resistance for the contract to get through.
If it can close above this level, that will attract significant speculative buying, one trader said. "There's a lot of overhead selling. The buying that's been coming in is fund buying, there's big scale-up selling both in New York and London," a cocoa dealer said.
Position rolling out of the March contract into May helped boost volume, they said. On the London market, the cocoa futures climbed to a multi-year high buoyed by investment funds. Liffe's March cocoa ended up 6 pounds at 1,153 pounds after trading from 1,135 and 1,154 pounds. May finished up 7 pounds at 1,176 pounds which was the highest settlement for the second month since April 2003.
In the world's biggest producer, cocoa arrivals at ports in Ivory Coast reached around 898,000 tonnes between October 1 and January 27, compared with 830,760 tonnes in the same period the year before, according to an estimate by exporters on Tuesday.
Around noon, ICE estimated 312 lots traded in the pit. This compare to the 460 contracts traded in open-outcry on Monday when light 6,737 lots were traded on the screen. Open interest rose 233 lots to 189,387 contracts as of January 28.