Coffee Attempts a Rally

Arabica coffee futures rose slightly Friday but failed to maintain the momentum of yesterday's gains as coffee supplies swell in consuming nations, slowing demand.

Arabica coffee for September rose 0.4% to $1.286 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange, near the higher end of a tight trading range that's held coffee so far this month.

ED&F Man's Volcafe said supplies of beans in the U.S. remain voluminous, with the latest figures from the Green Coffee Association pegging U.S. stockpiles of beans at 7.1 million bags, the highest since 1994.

"Demand is dead," said Thiago Marques Cazarini, a coffee broker with Cazarini Trading Co. in Brazil.

Other than a few big cooperatives in Brazil, the world's largest coffee growers, most exporters haven't been able to fill their books for further shipments, he said.

The 2017-18 crop is currently being harvested in Brazil. The USDA is forecasting total coffee production to be about 4 million bags lower than last year, mostly due to lower arabica output. J. Ganes Consulting said that early yields have produced smaller bean sizes because of dry weather earlier in the year combined with untimely rains.

In other markets, raw sugar for July lost 1% to 13.33 cents a pound, cocoa for September was down 2.4% at $2,020 a ton, frozen concentrated orange juice for July lost 1.1% to $1.412 a pound and December cotton was down 0.6% at 69.06 cents a pound.

Write to Julie Wernau at julie.wernau@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 16, 2017 12:06 ET (16:06 GMT)