Coffee exchange traded notes are perking up again as India, Asia’s third-largest grower, cuts its exports due to poor weather conditions.
The iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return Sub-Index ETN (NYSEArca: JO) jumped 7.3% Friday while the iPath Pure Beta Coffee ETN (NYSEArca: CAFÉ) surged 6.4%. Coffee has been the best performing asset year-to-date, with JO up 58.5% and CAFE up 53.9%. [Coffee ETNs Could be JO-lted Higher Again]
ICE Coffee futures were up 6% Friday, trading around $1.85 per pound.
Ramesh Rajah, president of the Coffee Exporters Association of India, calculates that coffee exports could decline as much as 10% from 312,756 metric tons in 2013, reports Swansy Afonso for Bloomberg.
“It has been an exceptionally bad year for production in India because of adverse weather last year and the weather has been a bit dry this year, which is worrying for the next season,” Rajah said in the article. “Global prices have moved up and this has reduced demand. Export volumes will go down this year.”
Due to heavy rains in Karnataka, which makes up 70% of output, India’s Coffee Board cut its crop estimate for 2013-2014 to 311,500 tons in January from the record projected 347,000 tons at the start of the season.
Meanwhile, growers are also holding back inventories, banking on higher prices in the future.