Arabica Coffee Snaps 3-Week Winning Streak; Cocoa Eases

Leslie Josephs

  NEW YORK--Arabica-coffee prices posted their first weekly drop in four weeks, as exports surged

from Brazil, easing worries over supplies from the source of one-third of the world's coffee.

  Arabica coffee for delivery in September fell 1.7% to $1.8085 a pound, the lowest settlement since

July 29.

  Prices are down 13% since hitting a nearly three-month peak of $2.0740 a pound last week after wet

weather in Brazil fueled concerns that premature flowering would hurt next year's crop.

  But robust stockpiles have helped Brazilian exporters meet strong demand for coffee, figures

released this week showed.

  Brazil exported 2.98 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in July, a third more than in the same

month of 2013, the Coffee Exporters Council of Brazil, known as CeCafe, said Thursday.

  Of those bags, 2.24 million contained green, or unroasted, arabica beans, the variety used by

roasters such as Starbucks Corp. The number of bags of green arabica rose 29% from a year ago.

  Since the start of 2014, Brazil's coffee exports have totaled 20.56 million bags, nearly 19% more

than the year-earlier period, CeCafe said.

  It wasn't clear whether the pace would continue as exporters and growers worked through stockpiled

coffee from the previous harvest.

  "The continuation of this favorable performance for the following months is subject to the harvest

in progress," said CeCafe Director-general Guilherme Braga.

  Cocoa futures eased from a more than three-year high. September cocoa ended 0.1% lower at $3,228 a

ton, but futures still notched their third consecutive weekly gain, rising 0.7%.

  This year's rise in cocoa prices has eaten into profit margins at candy companies including Nestle

SA.

  The "cocoa price is putting pressure on all chocolate, on all confectionery players' margins, and

we're no exception," said Nestle's chief financial officer, Wan Ling Martello, in an earnings call

this week.

  Raw sugar for October ended 0.6% higher at 16.14 cents a pound, rebounding from a more than

five-month settlement low. Orange-juice concentrate firmed from a six-month settlement low to end

0.6% higher at $1.40 a pound.

Cotton for December gained 0.3% to settle at 64.21 cents a pound.