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Coffee prices lower

NEW YORK: CSCE coffee futures were lower and trading in a fairly narrow range at midsession, pressured by speculative long liquidation, industry sources said.

"Spillover selling from Friday, combined with the Brazil estimated this morning," one analyst said. The revised USDA estimate released Friday increased Brazil's 1996/97 coffee crop to 27.5 million 60-kgs bags compared from 25.5 million in December.

But the analyst said the upward revision was not entirely surprising and was offset, in part, by an ED&F Man report also released Friday that said "consumption in 1995 was not as catastrophic as expected in the middle of the year." Retail demand, they said, returned to normal levels at the end of 1995 after falling earlier in the year due to frosts and drought in Brazil, which sent prices soaring to near 10-year highs.

At 1140 EDT, May coffee was 0.45 lower at 114.80 cents a lb, after trading between 115.00 and 112.70. Second-month July was down 0.10 at 115.10, while the back months were unchanged to 0.30 weaker.-Reuter