Sugar #11 May’21
A slow volume morning saw prices comfortably consolidating in higher ground, attempting to maintain the technical positivity achieved with the recovery over the past week or so though falling short of last Friday’s highs as May’21 reached to 15.63. Activity continued to be low, as did volume, with the situation only picking up as we moved through the afternoon against the increased index roll action which comes with the US morning. As the rolling hit into the May/Jul’21 so the front month started to wobble, falling away to morning lows and triggering off some long liquidation from day traders as these lows were then broken. Given the more positive nature of recent sessions it will have been a concern to some that the ease with which we fell back and subsequent failure to recover later in the afternoon may be illustrating a continuing fragility within the current market which at the very least could be limiting the upward scope. A session low was recorded late on at 15.32 with settlement only just above at 15.35, while the May/Jul’21 ended the day at parity having seen a low of -0.02, and while the outright performance merely concluded an inside day the nature of it may lead to some testing back towards 15c in the near term.
Sugar #5 Aug’21
The session began positively with the momentum from the end of last week maintained as Aug’21 reached $436.50 during the first couple of hours. This strength was in contrast to the spot May’21 contract which moved into its last week with further weakness off the bat as the May/Aug’21 roll continued, with volumes holding up well despite the fact that May’21 open interest has reduced down considerable to just 7,641 lots as at Friday’s close. The drag factor of May/Aug’21 widening out to -$15 discount led values to ease back from the highs and a period of consolidation followed near to unchanged levels, something which lasted until the early afternoon when heavier selling began to emerge. Whether the pressure was due to a struggling macro of simply due to a lightening of some recent long positions from specs its impact was felt through the rest of the day with process remaining on the back foot and only finding some stability as we worked into the $429/$428 area. With some irony it was against this wider slide that the May/Aug’21 finally found some support and by later afternoon we reached a daily high at -$5.90 which brought May’21 back into positive ground. This was unable to be maintained into the close however with choppy late trading leaving May’21 settling at $420.50 with Aug’21 ending at $428.30. Total volume for May’21 today was 9,613 lots and it will be interesting to observe how much this impacts the already small OI figure when published tomorrow.
ICE Futures U.S. Sugar No.11 Contract
ICE Europe Whites Sugar Futures Contract
