• Home
• /
• Markets

Sugar firms on delays in Brazil, coffee dips

Cocoa was little changed, with dealers focused on mid-crop harvesting in West Africa, the top cocoa-producing region.

Raw sugar futures on ICE edged higher, underpinned by delays to Brazil’s exports.

July raw sugar futures on ICE were up 0.2 cent or 1 percent at 20.44 cents a lb at 1015 GMT. On June 21, sugar futures had touched a two-month high of 21.81 cents a lb.

London August white sugar was up $4.70 or 0.8 percent at $590.50 per tonne in modest volume of 1,012 lots.

Thai raw sugar premiums this week are likely to stay at their highest in almost a year after New York futures resumed a downtrend, dealers said.

CME Group Inc was sued on Friday by brokers and traders in a last-minute effort to halt new procedures to settle end-of-day prices for agricultural futures in its Chicago Board of Trade, which plaintiffs say could put them out of business.

Speculators switched to a net long position in ICE raw sugar contracts in the week to June 19 for the first time in seven weeks as the futures market soared to a one-month high, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed.

Coffee, cocoa

September arabica coffee futures were down 1.05 cent or 0.7 percent at $1.5485 per lb, pressured by investor selling due to weaker financial markets. The benchmark second month HAD slumped to a two-year low of $1.5010 on June 18.

Robusta coffee futures on Liffe eased, with September down $10 or 0.5 percent at $2,022 a tonne in moderate volume of 2,487 lots.

Cocoa futures on ICE were steady, with September up $1 or 0.05 percent at $2,103 a tonne.

Traders focused on a small West African mid crop, which had a late start, and on development of the main crop in West Africa.

Liffe September cocoa futures were down 2 pounds or 0.1 percent at 1,473 pounds ($2,300) per tonne in low volume of 819 lots.