MUMBAI(commoditiescontrol) – Sugar prices on the Intercontinental Exchange ended up last week on end of the month short covering and some strength in Brazilian Real.
The most tracked, Sugar no 11 or the March 2020 contract ended up 1.05% at 12.48 cents, while the London December white sugar ended up 1.5 at $338.60 a tonne. Volumes in the sugar no 11 was up at 2,51,186 contracts compared with 228974 contracts for last week. Volumes in Sugar no 5 was substantially up at 32,460 contracts compared with 19,112 contracts for the last week.
During the week sugar was trading in a narrow range. Market moved up due to short covering by the funds and on strength of Brazilain Real but weak growth in consumption and risk of sizable exports from India capped the gains.
The European Union’s crop Monitoring service on Monday cut its forecast for this year’s EU sugar beet yield to 71.3 tonnes per hectare. This is still 3.5% above last year’s yield.
Trade house Sucres & Denrees (Sucden) said in a report that the combination of an expected global deficit in 2019/20 and the large net short position could trigger a short-covering rally as it did in 2016.
India's 2019-20 sugar production likely to fall to 26.9 mn tonnes, 1.3 mn tonnes below an August projection, due to unfavorable weather conditions
The latest CFTC data showed that managed money traders’ net short positions reduced to 222,648 as on the week ended October 22, from 222723 contracts last week. Open interest for the week stood at 1,100,352, up 40,097 on week.
This week the markets are likely to take cues from crop loss in India and US-china trade deal apart from movement in the Brazilian real and crude oil prices.
Support and resistance for the March contract are 12.24-12.60 cents/lb .