Sugar 11 Mar’22
Initial buying took March’22 trading up to 18.95 but it did not last and for the second time this week the early strength petered out ahead of 19c and the market tracked back to hold a few points ahead of last night’s closing levels. Prices then held within a narrow band for most of the morning as quiet conditions prevailed, though there was some ongoing support being seen for the March’22 spreads with March/May’22 holding around 0.36 pts having earlier traded to 0.39 pts, the highest level seen since late December. With no reason to resume higher prices started to drift further during late morning extending the daily range downward though finding some scale support which limited the losses to an intra-day double bottom 18.62/18.63. By mid-afternoon the macro picture was improving, and this encouraged some spec buying interest once more to the March’22 contract climbing easily into the 18.80’s but stalling in the same are where we had sat through the morning. The focus of the buying at the front of the board did also further improve the March/May’22 spread, taking the differential through to 0.42 points. Following some position squaring the final two hours saw settled trading in the upper 18.70’s which led the market into a calm close where March’22 concluded an inside day at 18.78. With the situation in the Ukraine creating uncertainty for markets generally today felt as though we are awaiting developments before many may commit in any significant way, and should the uncertainty continue then we may see more of the same for the near term.
Sugar #5 Mar’22
There was a short but sharp jump to $508.00 during early trading as buyers looked to continue from where yesterdays session left off, though with very little trade interest showing prices soon eased back to sit a dollar or so above unchanged for the next couple of hours. A quiet macro picture was providing no impetus to the specs and so it was that prices started to ease a little further during late morning to find support from consumer scale interest which had been raised to start ahead of $500 once more. There was little change to this picture until mid afternoon as some spec interest returned on the back of some macro recovery though the interest was confined to the front of the board and led spreads to widen back out with March/May’22 reaching $8.50 and March/Aug’22 at $14.50. As ever the danger when participation is confined to specs is that they have limited liquidity to play against and so having made it back to positive ground dip towards $503 followed at the first sign of some liquidation. The final part of the day saw values confined toward the centre of the range, ending quietly with March’22 valued at $504.00.