by Agrimoney.com
Cocoa led crops lower as commodities suffered another sell-off, accelerated by a report showing US jobless claims at an eight-month high fuelled a switch to assets deemed less risky.
New claims for US unemployment benefits rose by 43,000 to 474,000 in the last week of April, the highest since August, and significantly higher than the 410,000 that economists had expected, official data showed.
The figures exacerbated economic jitters on commodity markets already fretting over a round of interest rate rises, in countries such as India and Russia, and the impact of
"Global inflation is a major concern and has market trimming position on expectation of interest rate increases from China and the European Union, and slowing consumer demand due to high cost of fuel and food," grains broker Benson Quinn Commodities said.
The European Central Bank actually left interest rates on hold on Thursday. However, the UK added to the economic gloom by revealing a sharp slowdown in service sector growth last month, a decline blamed on government spending cuts.
'Tumbling hard'
On commodity markets, oil tumbled nearly 4%, for both Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude, while copper fell to a 2011 low, and tin plunged 7%, declines accelerated by a scramble for the dollar, as a safe haven asset, regaining it 0.9% against a basket of currencies.
A stronger greenback makes dollar-denominated assets, including many raw materials, less appealing to buyers in other currencies.
Among agricultural commodities, cotton tumbled 4.3% to a three month low of 144.95 cents a pound in New York for July delivery, after US export sales data revealed a sixth successive week of negative trade – ie with cancellations exceeding new orders.
New York cocoa for July plunged 4.6% to $3,211 a tonne, a decline accelerated by expectations of an imminent resumption of exports from Ivory Coast, the top producer and shipper of the bean.
"Cocoa prices are tumbling hard, partly due to the movement of ships out of Ivory Coast ports," James Mount at PitGuru said.
"As beans start flowing from the embattled African country there was bound to be a sell-off," with the mid-crop harvest adding extra supply pressure.
More rain?
In Chicago, all three major crops lost more than 2%, despite forecasts for additional rain, starting around May 13, in many regions of the US Corn Belt, which are attempting to catch up on delayed corn sowings.
"The issue of uncertainty is all of the eastern Corn Belt which is much wetter [the the western Corn Belt] and where it only stopped raining 48 hours ago," WxRisk.com said.
"This new additional four-to-five days of rain coming is really going to hurt and the flooding situation is only going to get worse."
However, US weekly exports sales data were "poor across the board" for grains and oilseeds too, broker US Commodities said, coming in, at 284,000 tonnes for corn and 275,000 tonnes for wheat, below the lowest analyst's estimate.
Soybeans sales, at 21,600 tonnes, compared with estimates of at least 150,000 tonnes, and potentially 250,000 tonnes.
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