Sugar Has Longest Slump This Year Amid Expanding Global Glut
Comment of the Day

September 15 2014

Commentary by Eoin Treacy

Sugar Has Longest Slump This Year Amid Expanding Global Glut

This article by Luzi Ann Javier and Marvin G. Perez for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Anticipation of a large world crop and supplies are putting pressure on prices,” Boyd Cruel, a senior market analyst at Vision Financial Markets in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “The market has also been weighed down by expectations for large deliveries” from Thailand, he said.

Raw sugar for March delivery fell 0.3 percent to settle at 16.27 cents a pound at 1:07 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. The contract had a ninth straight loss, the longest streak since Dec. 9.

Traders in Thailand, the second-biggest exporter, plan to ship sugar for delivery against New York futures for the first time since 2012. About 625,000 tons probably will be supplied against the October contract, equal to 16 percent of this year’s surplus, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts last month.

India, the second-largest producer, may export 3 million tons in the season starting next month, the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories said today.

Money mangers more than doubled their bets on price declines last week, U.S. government data show. The net-short position reached 31,873 futures and options contracts as of Sept. 9, compared with 14,043 a week earlier.

Eoin Treacy's view

The inclement weather than prevailed between 2011 and 2013 sent soft commodity prices higher and acted as an incentive for farmers to plant more. With supply disruptions easing the outlook for yields has improved and prices have fallen. This has been particularly evident in New York sugar prices which hit a new four- year low last week.

New York Sugar isn’t quite testing the 2010 low yet but is deeply oversold following seven consecutive weeks to the downside;  suggesting a great deal of the above news is already in the price. The first clear upward dynamic is likely to begin to pressure short stops and signal a low of at least near-term significance.

London Sugar has a similar pattern but posted its first upward dynamic today in at least three months.

 

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