Arabica coffee futures trading on ICE settled up a shade Monday, in a sleepy session supported by short-term investors and the weak dollar, traders said."A lot of people are waiting to see when and if the spread will break and move wider, it's still unusually narrow for this time of year," one coffee trader said.
The benchmark ICE July contract settled up 0.20 cent at $1.3345, in a trading range from $1.3285 to $1.347. The market trades until 3:15 pm EDT (1915). By 2:59 pm the July contract was up 0.10 cent at $1.3335. The rest ranged from 0.05 to 1.10 cents higher. Position rolling out of the May contract into the July contract was light ahead of the spot month's first notice day April 22, traders said.
Open interest for the May contract sat at 47,434 contracts as of April 11, with July at 74,940 lots, exchange data showed. The dollar fell during the trading day, off its earlier gains, after a surprise quarterly loss at the fourth-largest US bank added bearish sentiment to the dollar.
The weaker greenback makes dollar-traded coffee futures more attractive to investors holding other commodities. "The technical aspect of the market is telling us the (coffee) market is in consolidation mode," one trader said about the day's tight trading range.
On the London International Financial Futures Exchange (Liffe), robusta coffee futures trade was mixed on light investor selling while the stronger dollar also weighed on the market. The Liffe July contract closed down $2 at $2,268 a tonne, in dealings from $2,253 to $2,279.
On Friday, 38,083 arabica futures contracts traded on ICE while open interest jumped 5,808 lots at 172,957 lots. In a weekly report released Friday, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed noncommercials held a net long position of 22,358 lots in the week ending April 8, compared to the week-ago figure at 23,511 contracts.