Coffee Sweeter than Sugar

By Brad Zigler

Real-time Monetary Inflation (per annum): 8.6%

Well, here we are on the final trading day of May. Taking account for the month, the real story's been agriculture in its manifest forms.

For investors at the sector level, the 9.8% gain scored by the PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (NYSE Arca: DBA) in May could portend a broader resurgence in commodities. A more vigorous equity market breeze blew at the back of the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSE Arca: MOO), however, pushing the fund 17.8% higher for the month.

For now, at least, commodity stocks have the edge over commodities themselves. The tale of the tape is reflected in the MOO/DBA price ratio, which has gained in MOO's favor this year.

Ag Stocks (MOO) vs. Ag Futures (DBA)

At the individual commodity level, softs - food and fiber futures such as coffee, cocoa, orange juice, sugar and cotton - have been headline makers at Hard Assets Investor. In May, most of those headlines featured coffee. Many readers, on the other hand, seem to like sugar, both as a comestible and as an investment.

Let's just look at these two commodities to assess their prospects.

Sugar's had quite a run this month, rising 8.9% to the 15.64-cent level. The market for the sweet stuff, though, looks exhausted. Prices have stalled and fallen below near-term moving averages. Technically, sugar looks weak now. The question for investors is whether this flaccidity is a stage-setter for fresh buying or a trend reversal.

NYBOT/ICE Sugar (July '08)

Bulls in the iPath Dow Jones-AIG Sugar TR Sub-Index ETN (NYSE Arca: SGG) are starting to worry that a trend reversal's more likely. They're eyeing an April 30 island gap at $42.66 with increasing concern. Technically, that could represent the midpoint for sugar's run, putting a top just above the $51 level. And that's where the sugar - or, rather, its ETN proxy - stalled.

Coffee's rise has also been slowed recently, but seems only to be backpedaling from overbought levels. July coffee's jumped 12% this month and its near-term moving averages are intact, though a pullback to test them shouldn't be a surprise. That might, in fact, be an incentive for new longs to enter the market.

NYBOT/ICE Coffee (July '08)

On the note side, the iPath Dow Jones-AIG Coffee TR Sub-Index ETN (NYSE Arca: JO) is trying to break through the $42 level, but profit taking on Wednesday took some money off the table. Support remains strong at $40. Technically, coffee looks like it's pausing, not heeling over.

Coupled with the fundamentals we've cited in previous columns ("A (JO)lt Of Morning Coffee," "Coffee: Grounds For Concern?" and "Venti-Sized Gains For Coffee"), coffee seems the stronger speculative play right now.

Comments

[LKofScotland:]

Very interesting. Especially since coffe is very much a "national commodity" in an international world whereas sugar (in which there is much sugar "substitute") is not. (a mere "commodity indeed.) There is a hard (read "low") price for sugar at the retail level whereas coffee is more along lines of "either you gots or you don't gots." With a sudden problem with the dollar expect coffee to "stay strong" in the price sense. To me another interesting commodity is whole milk. People do have a limit for what they'll pay for sugar--but milk is another "priceable" commodity (meaning they do have the capacity to pass on their price increases.) It also is capable of soaring amounts of production with that higher price. Problems areas should be the usal suspects in brewers and booze producers. These types of "economies" where everyone is being forced to buy "only the necessities" are made to order for blowback against the "commodities of sin."

May 31 12:10 AM

[Brad Zigler:]

Milk prices have actually been ratcheting down (some 26%) since peaking in late March.

We track the wholesale trend in milk, and seven other common breakfast items, in Hard Assets Investors' monthly Breakfast Index (published coincidentially with the Consumer Price Index report; see our last iteration, "CPI At Breakfast: Coffee Talk" at www.hardassetsinvestor...).

May 31 05:22 PM

[5142152-337:]

Yawn!

May 31 09:08 PM

[cameroni:]

Good opportunities still left for long coffee and sugar buys. We are not truly inflationary yet but expectations (and realities) mean the upside is good. The Fed is telling us straight out that they will print money and monetize debt till the cows come home. That is how the economy will be rescued and that is highly inflationary. It is not a secret. Choose your best moment to buy if you are not in yet. All basic offshore food imports, ag products (coffee, sugar and oils specifically) will go wacky with inflation rearing it's ugly head.

The future opportunities are tremendous but some gambles still take guts. You have to know yourself really well and be very confident about the trends.

May 31 09:16 PM