Good morning and happy sultry Monday morning here in the northeast.
The longest days are upon us, and the weather is definitely warming up. We’re cranking up the ice machine and making some cold brew to take the heat off.
The market staged a bit of a recovery last week as it appeared most of the fund selling was
completed. The COT was very interesting. Issued on Friday for trading as of Tuesday June 22nd it showed that long funds sold 3375 lots to go to net 56,106 lots long while short funds added 3439 lots to go 22,506 lots short. So, all in all funds sold 6814 lots – all to roasters and trade as expected who bought a total net of 8389 lots (the difference was non-reportable traders were also sellers). From that point on the market rallied a bit, and this morning closed the 15925/15855 gap it left on the way down.
Some of the strength is macro related with the dollar’s continued weakness against the Brazilian Real which is now steadily trading under 5.000 (as we write this 4.94234) and the Colombian Peso is at 3734.9
As of Friday afternoon, the ICE stocks were at the highest levels of the year, again, 2,179,262 bags of which 1,150,751 were Brazilian.
Not much has changed. The civil unrest in Colombia has calmed and we’re seeing traditional coffee movements again from the major port of Buenaventura, though it’s going to take some time to take up the backlog caused by the blockages. Shipments from Asia, notably Indonesia and Vietnam remain difficult, and prices continue much higher than traditional. Expectations are this will last through the rest of the year now. Part of Brazil are having troubles accessing containers. Transshipment ports remain overloaded and delay the movement of coffee 15-30 days as well. Our logistics folks remark how they’ve never seen shipments with so many troubles all across the lanes we use. We’re in the cold weather season for the Brazil coffee region now.
For now, coffees are mostly available though the sooner you need it, the more problematic it becomes. Throw in a certification, a specific need or aspect, and you’re likely to be told nothing available in the nearby positions. Planning is going to become more and more important. Is the trade ready for this?
We have some RFA Brazil 2/3 and RFA Colombia and Guatemala in Continental available. As we mentioned last week, we have some very nice FTO Colombians that come from women centered farms/producers. We have some RFA certified Ethiopian Sidamo with an ETA of 8/2. From BSR in Honduras we have some really nice RFA/Organic Honduras SHG and RFA SHG available right away.
All the best,
The Armenia Team