As the market enters the last quarter of the season, we focus on the developments of the forward prices for the mid-crop of the 2023/24 season: the JUL-24 and SEPT-24 contracts. Their prices will reflect the development of what remains to be harvested, between about 20% and 30% of annual production.
As shown in Figure 1, a strong price pressure seen during the month under review was limited exclusively to the JUL-24 contract listed on ICE Futures Europe. The observation of much higher price increases in Europe than the United States may be attributed to the fact that the main destination of beans from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana is Europe, and with the low supplies from the leading producers, this suggests the shortfall in Europe and consequent price increases. The following narrative provides the conditions that prevailed during the month under review and how cocoa futures prices reacted.
Unlike the price dip witnessed at the end of the previous month, cocoa futures on both ICE Futures Europe and ICE Futures U.S. initiated an upward trend in the first week of July. During the week’s trading sessions, based on the JULY-24 contract compared to prices on the first trading day, prices rose by 5% from US$9,352 per metric tonne to US$9,823 per metric tonne in London and by 4% from US$7,500 per metric tonne to US$7,811 per metric tonne in New York (Figure 1). Issues of supply tightness and stock declines supported the price increase. A year ago, prices were not as high as they currently are (Figure 2).
