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CSCE coffee settles off in dull trade, awaits ACPC

NEW YORK: CSCE coffee futures settled with slight losses Thursday as arabicas dawdled for most of the day since most players sat back to wait for a crucial meeting among coffee producers getting underway next week.

May arabica settled at 103.50 cents a lb, 0.40 cent weaker, trading 104.40 to 103.25 cents.

Second month July fell back 0.55 cent to 106.05 cents. Back months slipped from 0.50-0.90 cent.

Arabica prices gapped higher at the start, but the level of activity lacked life with the series of meetings to decide the fate of Brazil's proposal for a coffee retention plan hanging like a cloud over market dealings, brokers said.

The Association of Coffee Producing Countries (ACPC) will meet in London on April 4-5 to take up the retention plan aimed at shoring up sagging coffee futures.

In a parallel meeting, coffee producers from Central America, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and the Dominican Republic will also meet in Costa Rica, on April 5.

"They're all entrenched in concrete waiting for the results of those meetings. There's just no volume in this thing," one broker said.

Traders said small speculators jobbed the market for most of the session and local pressure dragged arabicas down near the close of business.

"There's really nothing to say at the moment, but we'll have a lot to say after those meetings next week," a Miami-based analyst said.

"Everybody is anticipating what's going to happen at the ACPC," another broker said, adding there is general scepticism amongst the trade the plan can take off especially with key origins like Vietnam not a member of the ACPC.

Another trader said at the rate all the talk about coffee retention schemes are going, "we'll just be sitting around here until we start talking about frost (in leading grower Brazil) in May."

On a technical basis, traders said May arabica should see support at 100.25, followed by the psychological level of 100 cents, then the recent low of 98.40 cents. Resistance would be at 107, then 109-110 cents.

Volume traded reached an estimated 4,529 lots, against the official previous volume of 5,377 lots.

Call volume reached an estimated 996 lots, whilst puts were seen at 504 lots.

The CSCE is a subsidiary of the New York Board of Trade.-Reuters