There was another calm start to a session as March’25 ranged between 19.18 / 19.38 across the first 30 minutes of trading on low volume to continue within the same range. As the morning progressed a general upward bias developed but it lacked any significant buying and so stalled in the upper 19.40’s as it came near to the recent highs, disappointing the longs who in turn liquidated during the early afternoon. Having fallen back to sit little changed in the 19.20’s the afternoon became somewhat mundane with the price movement barely covering a few points at times, though the fact that prices were not slipping to look at the 19c end of the band did provide some encouragement t smaller traders who moved to push prices back towards the highs again. Somewhat unexpectedly this latest effort yielded some success with a break of 19.50 bringing through a few thousand lots of fresh buying / short covering which moved prices quickly into the 19.60’s, and while scale selling then provided some resistance the longs looked to continue pressing in hope of finding some more short covering and a bigger reaction. The movement benefitted the spread values which also pushed out from a tight daily range with March/May’25 extending out to 1.53 points, gains which were maintained through the later afternoon in conjunction with the outright. A dip back to 19.51 during the final hour cleared out a few positions but following the strongest showing in a week there was one final flourish from smaller specs which drove to new highs on the close/post close, with a positive settlement recorded at 19.66 to stand the market positively heading into tomorrow.

Raw Sugar No.11 (SB) – ICE Futures US Softs
Month Open High Low Sett Chg Last Vol O/I
Mar’25 19.18 19.71 19.18 19.66 0.40 19.69 61,363 318,606
May’25 17.74 18.18 17.74 18.15 0.32 18.17 38,833 245,872
Jul’25 17.41 17.80 17.41 17.79 0.29 17.79 15,563 158,649
Oct’25 17.50 17.87 17.50 17.85 0.25 17.87 11,889 99,376
Mar’26 17.92 18.22 17.92 18.21 0.22 18.22 7,575 78,348
May’26 17.25 17.49 17.25 17.48 0.19 17.49 847 35,488
Jul’26 16.98 17.15 16.94 17.14 0.16 17.15 754 25,491
Oct’26 16.98 17.17 16.98 17.17 0.15 17.16 676 20,563
Mar’27 17.36 17.52 17.36 17.52 0.15 17.50 179 11,759
May’27 17.09 17.14 17.07 17.14 0.13 17.14 51 5,678
Jul’27 16.92 16.97 16.90 16.97 0.12 16.97 30 7,024
                 
Total             137,760 1,006,854

May’25 jumped higher on the opening but gave up the gains soon after once the initial buying had dissipated, though with the supportive nature of the chart still providing encouragement prices were able to consolidate overnight levels. Later in the morning a little more buying interest began to appear and take the market up to new daily highs, however there was little fanfare, and the flat price remained quieter. This was in stark contrast to the March/May’25 spread where the squeeze was back on with the differential recovering the recent losses and pushing back up to $18.90, a daily gain of more than $8.00. Having made marginal new highs for the recent move at $507.50 but failed to draw fresh buying there was a pullback against day trader liquidation which sent May’25 back to $501.70, though that proved to be the extent of the losses with the short side still not proving attractive to the smaller traders. The market drifted for a couple of hours before again starting to look upward and having gently approached the morning highs a more aggressive push followed which took May’25 as far as $512.50 by the end of the day with a settlement level at $511.60. March/May’25 was off the highs but still firmer at $15.20, while another solid showing helped the May/May’25 arbitrage rise to $111.50.    

White Sugar No.5 (QW) – ICE Futures Europe Commodities
Month Open High Low Sett Chg Last Vol O/I
Mar’25 514.30 528.30 513.80 526.80 12.70 527.60 18,258 37,599
May’25 503.30 512.50 501.70 511.60 8.30 511.70 13,120 51,398
Aug’25 487.60 494.60 485.50 493.90 7.00 494.20 3,836 20,741
Oct’25 480.20 485.40 478.10 484.80 4.90 484.90 880 8,548
Dec’25 479.90 482.10 477.40 481.80 2.90 482.10 621 3,714
Mar’26 483.60 485.30 481.50 484.80 1.90 485.30 206 3,596
May’26 484.60 487.00 483.70 486.70 1.90 486.80 14 1,685
Aug’26 485.10 488.40 484.90 488.00 1.90 488.40 43 1,368
Oct’26 484.70 485.10 483.80 486.40 1.40 483.80 30 828
Dec’26          –              –              –   486.40 1.00 483.30            –   713
Mar’27          –              –              –   487.90 1.00 479.70            –   171
May’27          –              –              –   485.30 1.00 484.70            –   185
Aug’27          –              –              –   485.10 1.00            –                –  
Oct’27          –              –              –   484.40 1.00            –                –  
Total             37,008 130,546

Jon Whybrow

Jon joined CZ in 1991, working in the Treasury department before moving to join the derivatives team in 1994. Over 30 years Jon has built up significant experience across derivatives markets and products, particularly sugar, and is now Head of Flow derivatives providing market execution services for CZ’s global client base. He is responsible for the market commentaries which are published each day on CZ app.

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