The latest Commitment of Traders report from the New York arabica market has seen the Non-Commercial Speculative sector decrease their net short position by 18.62% within the market over the week of trade leading to Tuesday 7th. February 2023: to register a new net short sold position of 16,346 lots, which is the equivalent of 4,634,019 bags. This net short position has most likely been decreased further and possibly switched to a new net long position through the period of overall firmer trade that has followed. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Commitment of Traders reports that are ordinarily released to report the week of trade leading up to each Tuesday, in the week prior, are dated in release due to the backlog of retained data, following a data breach during the first week of February.

The latest Commitment of Traders report from the London Robusta coffee market has seen the Speculative Managed Money Sector raise their net long position by 32.67% within the market over the week of trade leading to Tuesday 28th February 2023: to register a new net long position of 19,718 Lots which is the equivalent of 3,286,333 bags. This net long position has most likely been little changed following the period of overall sideways trade that has since followed.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam coffee industry is set to host the 8th annual Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, which shall take place later this week, over the 10th to 14th of March. This festival being held within Vietnams largest coffee producing province, aimed to recognise the importance of the contribution of coffee farmers, as well as address commercial issues for the industry in terms of coffee export value and the importance of Vietnam within the world coffee industry. Vietnam is the largest robusta coffee producer and exporter to consumer markets, with 27 million bags robusta production and 1.50 million bags arabica production forecast during the October 2022 to September 2023 coffee year, Vietnam is anticipated to export 24.50 million bags 2022/2023 coffee year.

The Certified washed Arabica coffee stocks held against the New York exchange were seen to decrease by 12,075 bags yesterday, to register these stocks at 774,646 bags, with 95.06% of these certified stocks being held in, Europe at a total of 736,354 bags and the remaining 4.94% being held in the USA at a total 38,292. Of this, a total 376,893 bags, or 48.65% of the coffees registered and stored in consumer country certified warehouses of the exchange, Brazil washed arabica, and a further 48.01% of these certified coffees, originating from Honduras. There was meanwhile no change to the number of bags pending grading to the exchange; to register 53,434 bags pending grading on the day.

The May 2023 to May 2023 contract arbitrage between the London and New York markets narrowed on Friday to register this at 79.78 usc/Lb. This equates to 44.86% price discount for the London Robusta coffee market. This wide arbitrage may be viewed by price sensitive roasters as an attractive alternative discount for Robusta against the comparatively higher value arabica coffee.

It was a firmer day on the commodity markets on Friday, with the US Dollar losing ground against a basket of other currencies. Greenback volatility continues ahead of the next US Federal Reserve Bank announcements. A weaker Dollar is seen to be a bullish factor for commodities traded in other currencies. The leading in influence Oil markets firmer on the day. The Soybean, Sugar, Corn, Gold, Silver, Palladium and Platinum markets ended the day on a firmer note, while the Coffee, Cocoa and Wheat markets ended the day on a softer note. The day starts with the U.S. Dollar trading at 1.203 Sterling, at 1.161 the Euro and with the US Dollar buying 5.196 Brazil Real.

The New York market started the day on Friday trading to the north of par on a firmer note, while the London markets started the day trading on a softer note. The markets oscillated around par for the remainder of the early morning session. The late morning session saw the New York market attract some degree of selling pressure while the London followed suit albeit in a more sedate manner during the early session. The late morning session saw the markets continue to trend in a softer direction. As the afternoon progressed, speculative selling returned to the New York floor to trigger stops along the way, the London followed suit and the markets continued to project lower with long liquidation selling to accentuate the losses for the day’s trade. The selling activity started to wane toward the end of the days’ trade, to see both markets narrowly recover some of the earlier losses of the day. This saw both the New York and the London market settle in negative territory but above the lows on the day, in both markets under fair volumes of trade.

The London market ended the day on a negative note with 62.07% of the earlier losses of the day intact, while the New York market ended the day on a likewise negative note with 80.56% of the earlier losses of the day intact. This follow through softer close for the markets does little to inspire confidence, nor does it indicate direction with the New York market settling near to the lows of the day, one might think that the markets are due for little better than a hesitant start to early trade today, against the prices set on Friday, as follows:

LONDON ROBUSTA US$/MT              NEW YORK USC/LB.

MAY   2162 – 18                                     MAY    177.85 – 4.35
JUL     2150 – 16                                     JUL      177.20 – 4.20
SEP     2131 – 14                                     SEP      175.65 – 4.10
NOV   2095 – 13                                     DEC     173.65 – 4.05
JAN    2073 – 14                                     MAR    173.30 – 4.15
MAR  2067 – 14                                     MAY    173.75 – 4.25
MAY  2067 – 14                                     JUL      174.00 – 4.20
JUL    2073 – 14                                     SEP      174.30 – 4.10