The Brazil new crop harvest is mostly completed and with scattered rain showers starting to come to many of the main coffee districts, but nothing general and intensive is so far being forecast until next week. It is really the month of October that traditionally is the start of the full spring and summer rain season for the Brazil coffee districts and so far, the intermittent rain reports are not a matter of concern, however the December New York Arabica Position fell nearly 7% on Monday to retreat sharply from last week's eight month high point, due to forecasts of widespread rain across the Brazil Coffee growing regions that sparked large scale speculative long position liquidation which assisted to break through technical gaps and trigger further stop losses accentuating the losses for the day, early trade yesterday extended Mondays sharp decline before some late in the day consolidation with the markets recovering from the earlier in the day losses to some degree.

Meanwhile the new coffee crops in Mexico and Central America are steadily ripening and weather has mostly been conducive for development, ahead for the new October 2020 to September 2021 coffee year, for these fine washed arabica coffee producers. Though the prevailing soft nature of the New York terminal coffee market, see these washed arabica producers presently looking at something of a coffee crisis and with the potential lack of profitability due to make the full quality harvest costs difficult to finance.

One might anticipate that the inability to finance the usual frequency of ripe cherry picks through the harvest season shall have an impact on the prospects for crop outturn this coming year, from Mexico, and Central America, with many of these countries in Covid-19 related lockdown and intercountry as well as international border closures, could see higher than normal percentages of under and over ripe cherries being stripped from the trees, should these restrictions continue toward the main harvesting seasons for these countries, due to the general reliance on migrant picking and manual labour.

The Colombian National Government had presented the agricultural sector, including coffee farmers, with a set of guidelines on how to take the precautions necessary to avoid the spread of the Covid-19 virus. This was necessary to continue with as little disruption as possible, the harvesting of the Mitaca midyear coffee crop which traditionally peaks harvest in the months of April and May each year, and one might think that with the Mitaca midyear harvest having little interruptions that the protocols already in place for a new Colombia crop harvest that peaks in the coming months should be relatively unaffected by Covid-19 restrictions.

The Ivory Coast as west Africa’s leading robusta coffee producer, have reported that their coffee exports for the month of July were 41,933 bags or 24.11% lower than the same month last year, at a total of 131,983 bags. This has contributed to their country’s cumulative coffee exports for the first seven months of 2020 to be 147,633 bags or 16.19% lower than the same period last year, at a total of 764,383 bags.

The November to December contract arbitrage between the London and New York markets narrowed yesterday; to register this at 58.71 usc/Lb. This equates to 48.20% price discount for the London Robusta coffee market.

The Certified washed Arabica coffee stocks held against the New York exchange were seen to decrease by 550 bags yesterday to register these stocks at 1,116,921 bags, with 93.6% of these certified stocks being held in Europe at a total of 1,045,242 bags and the remaining 6.4% being held in the USA at a total of 71,679 bags. There is meanwhile no change to the number of bags pending grading for this exchange; to register these pending grading stocks at 4,509 bags.

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The London market ended the day with on a modest positive note with 23.53% of the earlier gains of the day intact, while the New York market ended the day on a softer note with 15.53% of the earlier losses of the day intact. This close, albeit that the New York market settled on a softer note with the market recovering the losses of early trade might inspire some degree of confidence and one might nevertheless expect to see some degree of caution and a hesitant near to steady start due for early trade today, against the prices set yesterday, as follows:

LONDON ROBUSTA US$/MT NEW YORK ARABICA USc/Lb.

NOV 1391 + 4 DEC 121.80 – 1.25
JAN 1405 + 4 MAR 123.30 – 1.00
MAR 1420 + 4 MAY 124.55 – 0.85
MAY 1434 + 4 JUL 125.80 – 0.70
JUL 1447 + 4 SEP 126.75 – 0.65
SEP 1461 + 4 DEC 127.70 – 0.65
NOV 1475 + 4 MAR 128.65 – 0.65
JAN 1487 + 5 MAY 129.25 – 0.65