Coffee Futures Rise as Producers Hold Back on Sales

The coffee market resumed its week-long climb Wednesday, with traders buying on technical signals that the market is oversold.

Arabica coffee for September was up 1.8% to end at $1.4035 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange, its highest close in 3 1/2 months.

"Maybe coffee isn't going to be a winner, going much higher, but the recent technical adjustments have helped," said Thiago Marques Cazarini, a coffee broker with Cazarini Trading Co. in Brazil.

Mr. Cazarini said producers in Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, are waiting for coffee prices to touch 500 reais ($160.27) a bag before they are willing to sell. Heavy exports and sales booked last year, he said, have left both sides of the trade comfortable and not itching for sales.

Rodrigo Costa, director of trading at Comexim USA, said the coffee market has been following the whims of the commodity index, not the fundamentals of the coffee market. "If we assume this to be true, we can then say that the future market has not yet reflected the expectation of a potential large Brazilian crop in 2018-2019, as some had suggested," he said in a note.

In other markets, raw sugar for October was off 0.6% to close at 14.79 cents a pound, cocoa for September rose 1.6% to end at $2,055 a ton, frozen concentrated orange juice for September was up 1.4% to end at $1.339 a pound, and December cotton was up 1.5% to settle at 70.34 cents a pound.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 02, 2017 17:33 ET (21:33 GMT)