Friday, April 18, 2008; Posted: 05:44 PM
"There was some business as prices picked up, a little more than in the last two weeks which have been quiet after the rally ended, but it's not like we are talking any significant volumes," said one trader in the region.
A healthy flow of offers was reported from across the producing countries in the region as international prices earlier in the week regained some strength and rose to over $1.40 per pound, after falling last week to $1.30/lb from $1.70 during the rally last month.
But prices failed to hold on to the new momentum and ended the week on a lower note, discouraging producers from selling, said traders in the U.S. market as well as Central America.
"The 2007-08 harvest is coming to the end and producers really has sold it quite well; there is only about 10% or 15% maximum of the crop left at this time which has not already been committed," said one U.S. trader in New York.
Margins for bids and offers for cash differentials from the region remained too wide to generate any new business for most origins in the region, with top-quality strictly hard beans from Costa Rica and Guatemala differing the most.
But trade in other origins was seen more willing to find a compromise on pricing ideas, with high grown beans from El Salvador quoted at discounts between 3 and 5 cents per pound from discounts last week between 2c/lb and 7c/lb.
Arabica prices at the ICE Futures U.S. exchange in New York on Friday closed higher with the active May "C" contract settling down 4.55 cents at 135.10c/lb, after rising 9c/lb on the week to a high of 139.65c/lb Thursday.
In fundamental news, Nicaraguan coffee exports in March, the sixth month of the new 2007-08 crop cycle, were up 30% to 177,868 (60-kilogram) bags, the official Nicaraguan Export Center, Cetrex, said earlier this week.
Total Nicaraguan coffee exports from the beginning of the 2007-08 cycle Oct. 1 through March, meanwhile, were up 33% to 652,495 bags, from shipments of 490,227 bags in the October-March period of the 2006-07 cycle.
-By Maja Wallengren, Dow Jones Newswires; 5255-5080-3452; maja.wallengren@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-18-08 1744ET
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