What’s brewing with coffee futures?

17 May 2022

Like most commodities, London coffee futures saw a massive price uptrend in 2021. However, since the beginning of 2022, it's finally cooled off to an eight and half month low. As a silver lining, perhaps more interesting price action is currently heading our way.

With a very sharp fall during the last two weeks of February it's since consolidated, trading between $2,000 and $2,200 per metric tonne. As of writing, London robusta coffee futures (LRC) are trading at $2,099 per metric tonne.

For London coffee futures, May is typically a ranging month with price starting to pick up towards the second half of June. More often than not, highs of the year are made during the June and July months. However, seasonal trends will be butting up against the possibility that coffee prices are still overextended from 2021’s price hike.

Where could coffee prices reasonably head?

Looking at the daily chart with the Awesome Oscillator indicator, we can see some slight divergence. In spite of its undescriptive name, the Awesome Oscillator details trends and shifts in momentum. On the chart above, can see that the indicator is showing signs of a shifting momentum since the first week of March. With price consolidating, the indicator has slowly crept back up to its zero line, failing to keep correlation to the actual price and trend of the price chart. This could be a suggestion that price may make its way towards June and July highs. If so, the bigger question is if it will actually create the yearly high as well before making its way back down.

In respect to fundamentals, it has been noted that Brazil is currently harvesting a record setting yield of robusta coffee beans. However, the risk of frost hitting Brazil’s crop might not have been priced into its current trading price.

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