ICE Coffee Futures Close Slightly Lower

Arabica coffee futures closed lower Friday pressured by speculative liquidation. The most active contract for May delivery settled 80 points lower at 143.35 cents a pound. Prices were under pressure after the opening, trading with losses of more than $0.025 to reach 140.50 cents. The real recovered today after reaching 3.3135 to close at 3.2299 which is the strongest close in a week. In related news from Brazil, Guilherme Braga, director of CeCafe, a Sao Paulo-based export group indicated that shipments will drop to 34m-35m bags in 2015 from 36.5m last year after prolonged drought curbed yields and Robusta exports will drop to 3m bags from 3.5m on dryness in Espirito Santo top-producing state of coffee variety.
London Market - New York provided the lead for London in a quiet session dominated by spread activity, the K/N alone comprising about 42% of today’s volume, as traders looked to manage spot exposure, H15 having come off the board yesterday. Origin was absent from trading activity and will likely remain so unless prices push well above the 1850 marker basis K15. Arbitrage values continued to strengthen throughout the day, the K15/K15 reaching 0.61 in the afternoon session. Despite the widening of the arb in the past few session, London has failed to gain support, with traders remaining hesitant to short the arb in light of the crop reports that are emerging from Brazil. The focus could shift from the idea that only predominantly robusta production areas have been affected