NY sugar higher, cocoa and coffee settle weak

Aug 22 (Reuters) - Raw sugar futures trading on ICE closed
higher on Wednesday, correcting from the previous session's
tumble, while U.S. cocoa closed at the lowest in three weeks.
Arabica coffee consolidated down.

2:00 PM SETTLE NET PCT LOW HIGH CURRENT
CHNG CHNG VOL
Sugar OCT 19.94 0.12 0.6% 19.80 20.18 41,824
Sugar MAR 20.6 0.05 0.2% 20.53 20.85 19,039
Cocoa SEP 2420 -62 -2.5% 2,410 2,451 40
Cocoa DEC 2380 -62 -2.6% 2,369 2,440 10,142
Coffee SEP 158.95 -1.25 -0.8% 157.60 160.55 4,958
Coffee DEC 162.1 -1.85 -1.1% 161.05 164.05 12,524

TOTAL MARKET VOLUME
CURRENT 30D AVG 250D AVG
ICE SUGAR 70,062 90,072 96,405
ICE COCOA 12,984 24,593 21,838
ICE COFFEE 20,242 24,289 22,106

RAW SUGAR
* Benchmark October raw sugar futures climbed 0.16
cent, or 0.8 percent, to settle at 19.94 cents a lb.
* The October/March spread settled at a 0.66 cent discount,
compared with 0.75 cent the previous session.
* The market retraced the previous session's steep losses,
when it closed down 3.5 percent and fell below 20 cents per lb
for the first time in more than two months.
* Sugar futures corrected higher after Tuesday's fall was
viewed as overdone, when the market fell into technically
oversold levels on the 14-day relative strength index chart -
traders.
* The first test on sugar beet in Germany this summer showed
sugar content of 16.4 percent - association of German sugar
producers WVZ.
* Total open interest climbed for the fourth straight day,
rising by 1,597 lots to 690,427 on Aug. 21, the highest since
June 29 - ICE data

ARABICA COFFEE
* December arabica futures dropped 2.10 cents, or 1.3
percent, to close at $1.6210 a lb.
* Arabica coffee futures eased as the market consolidated
around the 70.6 percent Fibonacci retracement level at $1.6250
per lb, basis December - traders.
* Dealers eyed plentiful supplies in the pipeline as top
grower Brazil approached the end of its harvest.
* Surging July coffee exports from Central America, Mexico,
Colombia, Peru and the Dominican Republic also weighed on the
market - traders.
* ICE certified arabica stocks jumped up by 13,986 bags to
1,872,286 bags by Aug. 21, the highest since September 2010,
with a hefty 117,653 bags pending grading.
* Total open interest dropped by 1,282 lots to 135,950 lots
on Aug. 21, the lowest since Aug. 2 - ICE data.

COCOA
* Benchmark December cocoa futures closed down $53,
or 2.2 percent, at $2,380 per tonne, the weakest finish since
July 30 as it eased further from last week's nine-month high of
$2,501.
* Market fell slightly below the recent range of
$2,378-$2,501 that it's held for the past week.
* "The uptrend is still intact. The market rallied quite a
bit from the middle of July through the middle of August. We're
just going through a normal retracement here." - Boyd Cruel,
softs analyst for Vision Financial Markets in Chicago.
* ICE certified cocoa stocks rose by 2,930 bags to 4,783,034
bags on Aug. 21 - exchange data.
* Cocoa purchases declared to Ghana's Cocobod reached 30,442
tonnes by Aug. 9 since the start of the light crop in mid-July -
industry regulator data.

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

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(Reporting by Marcy Nicholson)