Sugar Falls, Ending Longest Rally Since 2006

Well, well, well see my post a few days ago. The story was "the record has been reached" and my question was "when will it fall"? We did not have to wait too long.

Aivars Lode

Sugar Falls, Ending Longest Rally Since 2006, as Demand Ebbs; Coffee Drops
By Claudia Carpenter and Debarati Roy - Nov 10, 2010 3:45 PM ET

Raw sugar declined, ending the longest rally since 2006, on speculation that consumers will seek cheaper alternatives after prices surged to a 29-year high. Cocoa, coffee and orange juice also fell.

U.S. sugar use will drop 1 percent in the year that began on Oct. 1 after climbing 5.4 percent a year earlier, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday. Prices have more than doubled since touching a 13-month low on May 7 as adverse weather damaged crops in Russia, China and Brazil, the world’s biggest producer.

“Demand for the time being is totally dead,” said Naim Beydoun, a broker at Swiss Sugar Brokers in Rolle, Switzerland. “With high prices, we will have some substitution of sweeteners,” such as high-fructose syrup made from corn, he said.

Raw sugar for March delivery fell 0.3 cent, or 0.9 percent, to settle at 32.81 cents a pound at 2 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. The price rose in the previous 10 session, the longest advance since January 2006.

Yesterday, the commodity climbed to 33.32 cents, the highest level since January 1981.

“There is some profit-taking,” Bruno Lima, a risk- management consultant at FCStone Group Inc. in Campinas, Brazil. “Some buyers may be waiting for prices to fall a bit before returning to the market.”

In London, refined-sugar futures for March delivery dropped $12, or 1.5 percent, to $790.70 a metric ton on NYSE Liffe.

Coffee, Cocoa Slide

Arabica-coffee futures for March delivery declined 4.8 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $2.1495 a pound in New York. Earlier, the price climbed as much as 0.8 percent to $2.2145, the highest level since June 1997.

In London, robusta-coffee futures for January delivery slumped $76, or 3.7 percent, to $1,984 a ton.

Cocoa futures for March delivery fell $29, or 1 percent, to $2,855 a ton in New York and dropped 27 pounds, or 1.4 percent, to 1,872 pounds ($3,017) a ton in London.

Orange-juice futures for January delivery declined 3.5 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $1.58 a pound in New York.

To contact the reporters on this story: Claudia Carpenter in London at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net; Debarati Roy in New York at droy5@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net.