(Bloomberg) – Cocoa gained for a fifth day in New York, the longest winning streak in almost four months, on speculation prices that declined in the past three months fell too far amid limited supplies from West Africa. Sugar slid.
Cocoa fell 15 percent in the three months through February. Bean deliveries to ports in top grower Ivory Coast were 649,249 metric tons from the start of the season Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, according to the government. That’s a 7.5 percent decline from a year earlier, official data showed. In Ghana, purchases from farms were 17 percent lower at 594,000 tons from Oct. 1 through Feb. 28, according to KnowledgeCharts, a unit of researcher Commodities Risk Analysis in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
“The fact that supply from West Africa is evidently tighter than expected has driven prices up,” Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG, said in a report e-mailed today.“We expect cocoa prices to continue to recover.”
Cocoa for May delivery rose 0.4 percent to $2,167 a ton by 8:30 a.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. The beans used to make chocolate gained for a fifth day, the longest winning streak since Nov. 15. Cocoa for May delivery rose 0.3 percent to 1,470 pounds ($2,196) a ton on NYSE Liffe in London.
“There was a view that the market was oversold around the $2,000 a ton level, and that’s maybe why we saw the rally that started Friday,” Kona Haque, a commodities analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd., said by phone from London today. “These kinds of rallies present opportunities for West African countries to advance their forward sales programs.”
Ivorian Crop
Ivory Coast unexpectedly returned to the market in the past two weeks to sell beans from its main crop, according to three people with direct knowledge of the sales. Both Ivory Coast and Ghana sell part of their crop before the harvest starts, the so-called forward sales.
Raw sugar for May delivery fell 0.5 percent to 18.73 cents a pound on ICE. White sugar for May delivery was down 0.7 percent to $531.30 a ton on NYSE Liffe.
Arabica coffee for delivery in May slid 0.4 percent to $1.4185 a pound in New York. Robusta coffee for delivery in May was little changed at $2,208 a ton in London.
