Investment buying boosts sugar prices

23 July 1997

Investment buying boosts sugar prices

Investment fund buying drove up the sugar futures market yesterday.

The screen-traded sugar contract for the nearest month, October, reached $328 a tonne on the London International Financial Futures Exchange. This was the highest since September last year and just off the contract high of $329.90.

The October contract reached a record 11.65 cents a pound on New Yorks Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange. Elsewhere, on Liffe, coffee futures for September rallied slightly after falling to a six-month low of $1,477 a tonne. They were responding to the news that the Brazilian harvest had largely escaped frost. Cocoa meanwhile, also suffered from untroubled harvest forecasts. On Liffe, the September contract ended $10 lower at 975 a tonne, having hit 968 earlier in the day.