Mar 21 – Sugar No.11
There was early selling as we continued the recent pull back from recent highs, sending March’21 just below 15c in the opening minutes. The 15c area uncovered some light support from trade and consumers which prevented values from falling back by much further and the market entered a tight sideways band on continuing low volumes which lasted for several hours. A mixed macro was showing some positive signs from the energy sector but this was having no impact while moving in to the afternoon the USDBRL continuing either side of 5.40 failed to have any impact with producers nowhere to be seen. The 15c malaise was only broken during the final couple of hours as some very light buying emerged to try and pull values out of deficit however in keeping with the nature of the day this move faltered a couple of points shy of unchanged values and we soon slipped back to sit around 15c once again. There was a narrowing of the 2021 spreads versus 2022 and 2023 with nearby prompts showing the greater net losses but this was down to circumstance of the only outright activity being confined to the nears rather than actual spread activity. Appropriately the close was quiet save for some MOC position squaring leaving March’21 to settle at 15.04 with the range bound situation appearing likely to continue for the near term.
March 21 – Sugar No. 5
There were early losses for the market and a morning of toil endured, broken only by a brief early spike up to $411.40 for March’21 against a sharp burst of buying before returning to the $407/$408 area as soon as it had concluded. This served to temporarily inflate the March’21 white premium value up to the $79 area however with prices skimming along at the lower levels it spent much of the day valued nearer to $76 but with very little actually being traded against it. With the macro continuing to be ignored and India still showing no sign of making an announcement as to any subsidy the session became a complete non-event as set the range within the first couple of hours leaving many to simply stand aside and ignore the market entirely. Most of the residual; activity was seen at the lower end of the range with some consumer interest being observed and we continued here until the closing stages when some very light buying emerged to push up into the vacuum above and restrict the days losses with some MOC buying. March’21 settled away from the lows at $408.60 as a result but with the US fast approaching the Thanksgiving weekend quiet conditions seem set to continue.
ICE Futures U.S. Sugar No.11 Contract
ICE Europe White Sugar Futures Contract
