ICE Coffee Futures End Higher by FC Stone

Arabica Coffee Futures settled 70 points higher at 119.00 cents per pound, after a slow session with little activity. The real’s weakness and the feeling that the Brazil and Colombia harvests could be greater than originally anticipated continued to add bearish pressure to prices. Volume reached 17,952 lots, including 3,818 switches. With no fundamental news, price action was dominated by short term players, doing business forward and back. The Brazilian real suffered today, closing at BRL3.9830, due to news of the replacement of the Finance Minister Levy and possible proceedings in the impeachment case of president Rousseff. During the week, coffee prices lost 1.8% or $0.0220. The coffee market was affected due to negative news such as the downgrade of the Brazilian debt, an increase of CONAB’s estimate, and good flow of exports. ECOM’s commentary on Brazil’s harvest for 2016 supported the idea of reaching 60.0 million bags. Commodity markets did
not  help,  due  to  a  strong  dollar  against  global  currencies,  especially  the  Euro  and  the  British  Pound  Sterling.  Analysts
believe that slowing Chinese economy and the tightening of the US monetary policy will further discourage demand for
emerging markets and raw materials.