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CSCE cocoa ends higher on late trade house buying

NEW YORK: CSCE cocoa futures ended firmer again on Thursday, but off intraday highs, when prices came under renewed pressure from arbitrage and price-fix selling, dealers said.

"It's pretty good levels for it (market) now. Yesterday as well you had a little bit of positive action and today we took out some recent highs," one broker with a commodities trading house said.

May cocoa settled at $809 a tonne, up $9 but off its nearly three-week high of $820. The benchmark contract touched a low of $800.

Spot March cocoa, under delivery since on Tuesday, rose $17 to $781 and the rest of the board was up from $6 to $7 a tonne.

Bean prices gapped higher at the open as speculative buying triggered buy stops above previous highs, traders said. "There was just a snowball effect on the stops. But it fell short of the gap between $823 and $825. It was just too much, too soon."

Steady arbitrage selling in July, coupled with price-fix selling and trade profit taking, put pressure on the market throughout the rest of the day.

"But we held at $800. It keeps the spec (speculator) interested in the market and the trade just popped it up here into the close," the broker said.

Final volume in cocoa on Thursday was estimated at 8,285 contracts, compared to official turnover Wednesday of 11,928 contracts.

LIFFE cocoa ended stronger after receiving a boost from its New York counterpart. Active May settled at 575 pounds a tonne, up nine pounds, having fluctuated between 578-568 pounds.

Traders pegged support in May at $775, whilst nearby resistance was seen at $823-25, then $834 and $848.

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