Cocoa Futures Break $9,000 for Record High

The incredible long-term rally in Cocoa continues, with the price rising by 8% yesterday in a single day, and New York futures up by 60% in March alone.

1. The minor commodity Cocoa continues to dominate the news as it continues to power to new all-time highs with volatile gains – yesterday it increased by about 8% to reach beyond $9,000 for the first time. The commodity superfood has almost tripled in value over the last year alone, with many analysts suggesting supply side shortages are at least partly to blame for the meteoric rise. There is more and more demand for Cocoa every year as it is coveted as a key ingredient for chocolate but also as a superfood in its own right. Trend traders will be interested on the long side, although which such high volatility and sharp gains, it could come crashing down at any time, so trend traders must be careful to use a disciplined stop loss if going long. As well as Cocoa futures, there are Cocoa ETNs available which may be more suitable for retail traders and investors.
2. Bitcoin is rising again and trading above $70,000 not far from its recent record high near $74,000, despite crypto funds seeing record outflows last week.
3. The Japanese Yen remains quite weak, as the Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki tried to talk up the Yen by saying he was “open to all options to address disruptive Forex fluctuations”. The USD/JPY currency pair is a little off the 4-month high it made Friday, but there will still be traders interested in looking for long trades here, although it is clear the Japanese authorities want to stop this rally. Since the Tokyo open, the New Zealand Dollar has been the strongest major currency, while the Swiss Franc has been the weakest.
4. Gold is continuing to look quietly bullish and may well test its recent record high over the coming days, although it is still some way off. Trend traders will also be interested in the long side here.
5. The major US stock indices, notably the S&P 500 Index, continue to look bullish and are trading not far from their recent record highs. Trend traders will be very interested in being long of major US stock market indices, as the price action suggests they will continue to advance.
6. There will be releases today of US CB Consumer Confidence data and Australian CPI (inflation), the latter of which is expected to increase slightly from 3.4% to 3.5%.