NY sugar, coffee and cocoa end firm, thinly traded
NEW YORK, March 25, 2011 - Raw sugar futures closed strong on Friday, in thin dealings and on a lift from speculative buying as ethanol mills began to crush in Brazil's center-south region.
Cocoa and coffee also climbed quietly to settle higher.
The opening hours will return to normal March 28, after a temporary one-hour delay over the past two weeks due to the seasonal time change.
RAW SUGAR
* The benchmark May raw sugar contract rose 0.41 cent to close at 27.86 cents per lb.
* On the week, the market is up 0.05 percent.
* Buying by small speculators gives market a boost - brokers.
* Analysts said news ethanol mills starting crush of Brazil's center-south cane crop buoyed market values.
* Alex Oliveira, sugar analyst at brokerage Newedge USA, said market looking forward to next set of estimates by industry group Unica due out middle of next week.
* The volume of business was close to 59,015 lots, roughly half the 30-day norm, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.
COFFEE
* May arabica coffee futures rose 2.80 cents to close at $2.6860 per lb.
* May finished the week down 2.8 percent.
* Bargain hunting following three days of losses helped lift the thinly traded market higher - traders.
* Market appears to have found a bottom, after falling from a 34-year high earlier this month, and saw gains from some chart-based buying - traders.
* Bright sun in main Colombia coffee areas has boosted flowering -- a key process for predicting the main harvest at the end of 2011 -- and helped stress trees to break the dormancy of flower buds in the world's top producer of high quality Arabica beans.
COCOA
* Key May cocoa futures rose $39 to settle at $3,242 a tonne.
* May closed the week up 3.7 percent.
* Cocoa rebounded slightly higher as commercial buying lifted the market - traders.
* Ivorian export ban is scheduled to be lifted at the end of next week and global cocoa supplies are plentiful, preventing stronger gains in the face of the crisis in top grower Ivory Coast - traders.
* A draft resolution France and Nigeria submitted to the U.N. Security Council calls for sanctions against Ivory Coast incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, his foreign minister and three other people.====
