Cocoa futures raced to their highest levels in a year on Monday but closed off the day's highs in a measured response to a call for a one-month ban on Ivory Coast cocoa exports. Several analysts were sanguine about the call's potential impact as they expected that beans would continue to flow despite the political impasse.
New York's March cocoa contract on ICE Futures US soared $128, or 4 percent, to finish at $3,312 per tonne, the highest settlement for the spot contract since January 2010. But the market ended well below the session high of $3,393. Volume in the US cocoa market was about 27,100 lots, more than double the 30-day norm, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed. But that was much lower than the 44,041 lots tallied on Friday, which was shy of the daily record of 45,618 lots set on November 9, 2010, ICE Futures exchange data showed. The March arabica coffee contract fell 3.10 cents to end at $2.373 per lb. The March raw sugar contract eased 0.02 cent to end at 32.31 cents per lb.