Recasts, adds closing prices and comments
NEW YORK/LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – White sugar futures on ICE slipped on Thursday after earlier hitting a fresh 4-1/2 year high on signs demand might be picking up. Raw sugar also fell, while arabica coffee closed up.
SUGAR
* December white sugar LSUc1 settled down $1.60, or 0.3%, at $512.90 a tonne, having earlier hit the highest since March 2017 at $519.60.
* October white sugar expired on Wednesday up 3.3%. A total of 124,800 tonnes of Indian white sugar has been tendered against the October contract on ICE Futures Europe, exchange data showed.
* “White sugar will be the first sugar contract to feel an uptick in demand. That will be followed at a later time by raw sugar,” said a dealer.
* “A change in demand sentiment while supply could be cut back further is constructive for price,” he added, citing ongoing concerns over supply from top producer Brazil, for both this season and next.
* October raw sugar SBc1 closed down 0.03 cent, or 0.2%, at 19.49 cents per lb.
COFFEE
* December arabica coffee KCc2 settled up 0.8 cent, or 0.4%, at $1.8815 per lb.
* Green coffee stocks in the United States rose slightly to 6.1 million bags at the end of August.
* “It’s a modest increase but I would take (it) as bearish the market,” said a dealer.
* November robusta coffee LRCc2 gained $25, or 1.2%, at $2,107 a tonne, the fifth consecutive session of gains.
* Weak demand and low inventories at the end of the harvest season in top robusta producers Vietnam and Indonesia weighed on local prices this week, traders said. .
COCOA
* December New York cocoa CCc1 fell $6, or 0.2%, to $2,657 a tonne.
* December London cocoa LCCc1 closed up 7 pounds, or 0.4%, to 1,816 pounds per tonne.
* Dealers said sentiment is bullish given an expected deficit of around 150,000 for the upcoming 2021/22 crop, improved demand, good pre-sales of the crop and high freight rates.
(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira and Maytaal Angel; editing by Bernadette Baum, Sonya Hepinstall and Shailesh Kuber)
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