Arabica coffee futures finished quietly lower on Tuesday as players continued to seek direction and speculators played both sides of the market, traders said.
"It's been pretty choppy, I think it's looking for direction. It's like a ping pong, $1.30 to $1.40," one trader said, about the range within which the key arabica futures contract has moved in the last two weeks.
"It will probably try to test the $1.30 level again, to see if it goes through, in the near future," the trader added. In the open-outcry pit, the benchmark ICE March arabica coffee contract settled 0.50 cent lower at $1.337 per lb after trading from $1.334 to $1.349.
The rest finished down 0.35 to 0.55 cent. Electronically traded March arabica was down 0.85 cent at $1.3335 cents at 1:51 pm EST (1851 GMT), in a narrow trading band from $1.33 and $1.349. "(There is) light origin selling, light trade buying and light volume," one coffee dealer said.
On the London International Financial Futures Exchange (Liffe), robusta futures shot to a 9-1/2-year high as investment funds expanded the already huge long positions in commodities. The Liffe March contract closed $14 higher at $2,071 a tonne, in a trading range from $2,042 to $2,082 which marked the highest level for the second position since May 1998.
The ICE March robusta contract had not traded by 1:51 pm ICE estimated 1,796 lots traded in open-outcry on Tuesday, compared to the 2,232 lots traded on Monday, when 17,960 lots traded on the screen. Open interest rose 2,169 lots at 179,971 lots as of January 28.