NY coffee slumps, sugar and cocoa end lower

July 24 (Reuters) - Arabica coffee slumped to a lower close
Tuesday in its biggest one-day percentage drop in nine months on
heavy late-session selling and automatic sell-stop orders.
Raw sugar finished down amid talk of rains letting up in top
grower Brazil. U.S. cocoa also fell.
The European debt crisis weighed, as rising Spanish bond
yields drove Madrid closer to a full-scale bailout, while
Greece's membership in the euro zone was at risk as its finances
were way off its rescue package aid terms.

1:59 PM SETTLE NET PCT LOW HIGH CURRENT
CHNG CHNG VOL
Sugar OCT 23.49 -0.4 -1.7% 23.19 23.92 63,814
Sugar MAR 23.73 -0.23 -1.0% 23.48 24.07 28,422
Cocoa SEP 2209 -29 -1.3% 2,202 2,278 14,202
Cocoa DEC 2229 -25 -1.1% 2,224 2,286 7,671
Coffee SEP 175.45 -9.65 -5.2% 173.70 185.45 19,249
Coffee DEC 178.3 -9.35 -5.0% 176.70 187.95 6,684

TOTAL MARKET VOLUME
CURRENT 30D AVG 250D AVG
ICE SUGAR 112,067 132,023 96,076
ICE COCOA 23,927 22,986 21,685
ICE COFFEE 28,909 26,266 22,075

RAW SUGAR
* Benchmark October raw sugar futures fell 0.40 cent,
or 1.7 percent, to settle at 23.49 cents a lb.
* Market hit by speculative sales - brokers.
* Sugar weakened by talk that rains in top producer Brazil
have let up.
* "The sugar can now flow," said The Price Group analyst
Jack Scoville.
* Weak outside markets also put pressure on the sweetener.

ARABICA COFFEE
* September arabica futures tumbled 9.65 cents, or
5.2 percent, to close at $1.7545 per lb, the lowest settlement
in three weeks.
* The September contract fell through the 100-day moving
average at $1.7795, closing below the key level for the first
time since July 6.
* Market felt pressure from the commodity wide selling but
sharply extended its losses just ahead of the settlement window
after hitting sell-stops below $1.82, basis September - traders.
* Roughly 500 trade-at-settlement (TAS) contracts were
listed, telling market participants that someone needed to sell,
spurring speculators to do the same - Nick Gentile, chief
trading officer of commodity fund Atlantic Capital Advisors in
New Jersey.
* "If they don't trade them on the TAS screen then they're
going to come to the market on it and a lot of people are
looking at that and have sold on the close." - Gentile.
* Certified arabica stocks rose by 6,123 bags to 1,749,529
bags by July 23, the highest since October 2010. There were a
47,128 bags pending grading - ICE data.
* ICE certified arabica stocks have climbed every day so far
this month - exchange data.

COCOA
* Benchmark September cocoa futures eased $29 to
settle at $2,209 a tonne.
* Market fell along with the weak commodity complex -
traders.
* The weak sterling against the U.S. dollar also
provided some pressure - traders.
* Global cocoa prices will find support in the next year, as
supply is seen falling slightly short of demand due to a dip in
output from top growers - Reuters poll.
* Ghana's President John Atta Mills died unexpectedly, a
presidential statement said, and an aide said his death occurred
on Tuesday after he took ill on Monday night. [nLID:6E8IOJ33]

For related news and prices, click on the codes in brackets:
Sugar futures/spreads Sugar cash prices
Coffee futures/spreads Coffee cash prices
Cocoa futures/spreads Cocoa cash prices

RELATED NEWS AND OTHER TOPICS
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(Reporting by Marcy Nicholson and Rene Pastor in New York)