Market Reports

The latest Commitment of Traders report from the New York arabica market has seen the Non-Commercial Speculative sector decrease their net long position by 6.56% within the market over the week of trade leading up to Tuesday 4th March 2025: to register a new long position of 39,049 lots, which is the equivalent of 11,070,218 bags. This net long position has most likely been little changed following the period of mixed but overall sideways trade that has since followed. The Commercial sector held 81,495 Lots or the equivalent of 23,103,471 bags net short position on the day, a decrease of 1.22% on last.

In the same report from the New York arabica coffee market the shorter term in nature Managed Money fund decrease in their net long position by 5.15% over the week of trade leading up to Tuesday 4th March 2025; to register a new long position at 54,912 Lots. The longer term in nature, Index Fund sector of this market marginally increased their net long position by 2.94% within the market, to register a new net long position of 39,440 Lots on the day.

The latest Commitment of Traders report from the London robusta coffee market has seen the Speculative Managed Money Sector decrease their net long position by 9.93% within the market over the week of trade leading to Tuesday 4th March 2025: to register a new net long position of 26,912 Lots which is the equivalent of 4,485,333 bags. This net long position has most likely been decreased further following the period of overall softer trade that has since followed.

The Brazil government have reported preliminary data to illustrate that the country’s green coffee exports for the month of February were 20.48% lower than the same month last year, at a total of 2,869,500 bags. The official breakdown of coffee exports by description for February can be anticipated to report the breakdown of this export data to arabica, robusta and soluble green coffee equivalent. It is likely that logistical bottlenecks along with the earlier in the year frontloading of exports to consumer markets in light of the then, looming EUDR regulation implementation, have contributed toward the skewing of the month to month and year on year comparative data, whereas the total exports to consumer markets, have registered a 10.15% increase across the first seven months of the Brazil 2024/2025 export year, to total 27.54 million bags, which may indicate that there will continue to be a limitation to the remaining coffee ahead of the next coming crop, the coming months export figures may continue to reflect reduced year on year figures.

In the latest round of independent forecast updates, a prominent Global Financial Services firm has come forth to forecast the Brazil 2025/2026 coffee crop to potentially be 2.30% smaller than the current year, at a total of 64 million bags. They have reported that they foresee the 2025/2026 Vietnam coffee crop at a total of 29.80 million bags, an increase of 7.97% year on year. The report indicates that global coffee production is forecast to grow by 0.75% to reach 172 million bags during the 2025/2026 coffee year against a global coffee consumption of 170.80 million bags. This they say shall result in a marginal global coffee supply surplus of 1.20 million bags for the 2025/2026 year, following a 200,000 bag coffee supply surplus for the 2024/2025 coffee year.

The US National Coffee Association conference was held in Houston last week, major discussion between the global coffee trade to include multinational and local consumer roaster participants continued to be the steep surge in prices. The arabica coffee futures market has registered an increase in value, at its highest point of over 70% since November last year. It is widely accepted that the trade is taking a very conservative approach and that hand to mouth business is conducted in these extraordinary times, to try minimise risk and exposure to volatile price movements. The price focus within the conference highlighted that consumer country held trade stocks are low, and that roasters continued to struggle within the price pressured consumer retail sector, to work in price increases for products on shelf, while supermarket chains equally fight for a share of shrinking consumer spend in many northern hemisphere coffee consumer markets, this to include coffee consumer market leader USA.

The Certified washed Arabica coffee stocks held against the New York exchange were seen to increase by 3,145 bags on Friday, to register these stocks at 797,826 bags, with 96.77% of these certified stocks held in Europe, at a total of 772,029 bags and the remaining 3.23% being held in the USA at a total 25,797 Bags. Of this, a total 517,572 bags or 64.87% of the coffees registered and stored in consumer country certified warehouses of the exchange, are Brazil washed arabica, and a further 9.45% of these certified coffees, from Peru. The pending grading stocks posted an increase of 6,321 bags on the day, to register 46,707 bags pending grading on the day.

The May 2025 to May 2025 contract arbitrage between the London and New York markets widened on Friday, to register this at 141.59 Usc/Lb. This equates to 36.83% price discount for the London robusta coffee.

It was a mixed day on the commodity markets on Friday, following newly released economic data from the USA indicating slower than expected jobs growth, which may provide guidance to suggest that the US Federal Reserve will continue their rate cutting cycle this year. Trade Tariff discussions and implementation continue create uncertainty within global markets, to include coffee exports from countries such as Mexico that may be potentially impacted by the leading USA coffee consumer market. The Cocoa, Corn, Sugar, Soybean and Palladium markets ended the day on a firmer note, while the Coffee, Wheat, Gold, Silver and Platinum markets ended the day on a softer note. The day starts with the U.S. Dollar trading at 1.291 Sterling, at 1.084 the Euro and with the US Dollar buying 5.791 Brazil Real.

The New York and London markets started the day on Friday trading on a firmer note respectively, gaining momentum during the early morning session to see the markets set a new high for the day. The support continued through the remainder of the morning session, with the markets trading in positive territory, settling into a range. As the afternoon progressed the markets continued to trade in modest firmer territory before encountering resistance to drop back from the early highs and trend through par and into softer territory. Late in the day, a small degree of speculative long liquidation followed, to see both the New York and London markets drop and set a new low for the day. As the session progressed and the activity increased, albeit in modest terms, the markets found support near to the lows of the day to recover from the earlier losses whilst trading below par and in negative territory, the New York market settled on a softer note at the close with less than half of the earlier losses of the day intact, whilst the London market settled on a likewise softer note at the close with only some of the earlier losses of the day intact.

The London market ended the day on a negative note with 54.81% of the earlier losses of the day intact, while the New York market ended the day on a likewise negative note, with 33.95% of the earlier losses of the day intact. This follow through softer close for the markets, does little to inspire confidence, albeit that the markets recovered from the lows of the day during what was a choppy session, one might think that the markets are due for a follow through steady start to early trade today, against the prices set on Friday, as follows: