Coffee Surrenders Recent Gains

Several soft commodities on Tuesday gave up the previous day's gains as traders focused on high levels of supply.

Arabica coffee for March delivery fell 1.31% to $1.2095 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange. March cocoa fell 0.46% to $1,929 a ton. March cotton fell 1.38% to 82.26 cents a pound.

Coffee prices rose Monday as investors covered short positions, but reversed course Tuesday as traders focused on expectations for high production levels in Brazil.

"New York traders are noting the good weather currently being reported in Brazil and expect another bumper crop," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group.

In cocoa, traders were anticipating fresh figures on production later this week, looking for an upward revision to the 2016-2017 crop and high expectations for the 2018-2019 crop, even amid tepid demand, said Nicholas Gentile, managing partner at NickJen Capital Management.

"Across the soft commodity complex there isn't really an underlying bullish fundamental story," Mr. Gentile said.

In other markets, frozen concentrated orange juice for March also posted losses, edging down 0.03% to $1.4840 a pound. March raw sugar rose 0.15% to 13.19 cents a pound.

Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 23, 2018 15:23 ET (20:23 GMT)