Noticias cacao 19 julio

DJ ICE Cocoa Review: September Falls 5.8% As Supply Worries Ebb
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


Cocoa futures for September delivery plummeted 5.8% on speculative fund-led
selling as concerns eased over a massive warehouse squeeze in London.

Most active September cocoa fell $184 on Monday to settle at $2,981 a ton on
ICE Futures U.S. in New York.

Cocoa futures last week had rallied to 10-week highs over worries that much
of Europe's warehouse inventories were being locked up by a large entity, at a
time when global supplies were already seasonally tight. Now that it is now
known that the large entity was a speculative hedge fund, and not an end-user
of cocoa, initial worries were soothed and traders sold.

"The complexion of the market changes because now we don't necessarily have a
problem with how much cocoa is going to be coming into the real world. What we
have here is a warehouse squeeze," said Sterling Smith, analyst at Country
Hedging in St. Paul.

U.K. trading house Armajaro, while not the only participant taking delivery
of London cocoa, was the largest. The cocoa was secured through a number of
trading houses, including BNP Paribas Commodities Futures Ltd. and nine other
brokers. In total they took delivery on 240,100 tons of cocoa, valued at as
much as $1 billion. BNP Paribas alone took possession of 102,450 tons, valued
at about $427 million.

Armajaro runs five hedge funds including cocoa and coffee-focused CC+ Fund.

The selling in New York cocoa intensified when speculative traders pressed
the market down through chart-based support, activating pre-programmed sell
orders. From there, September cocoa tumbled to a 1 1/2-week low of $2,946.

While cocoa supplies are seasonally tight before top-grower Ivory Coast
harvests its main crop beginning in October, there is enough to meet current
demand.

"The world's not short of cocoa. This was a maneuver that the funds made, but
it's ending poorly for cocoa," said James Cordier, analyst and president of
Liberty Trading Group in Tampa.

With the selloff, cocoa futures are back around $3,000, a level they had been
trading at for the last few months.

London cocoa futures also fell following the weakness on ICE. September cocoa
traded on NYSE Euronext's Liffe fell GBP100, or 4.1%, to settle at GBP2,345 a
ton.

Open interest in cocoa rose 750 to total 127,554 lots, ICE reported.

Futures volume is pegged at 25,795 lots, with 310 calls and 282 put options
traded.

ICE Change Range
Sep $2,981 dn 184 2,946 - 3,185

* ICE settlements in dollars per metric ton with intraday range.