After tumbling nearly 24 from May 1 through July 1, entering a bear market in the process, the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return Sub-Index ETN (NYSEArca: JO) has bounced back to reclaim its status as this year’s top-performing non-leveraged exchange traded product.
In just the past week, JO has surged 11.2% and currently trades about 9% below its 52-week high after soaring 10.8% since Wednesday. The smaller iPath Pure Beta Coffee ETN (NYSEArca: CAFÉ) is up 11.6% this week.
JO and CAFÉ have got a lift after traders bid coffee futures to the highest level in two and a half months Thursday on more forecasts out of Brazil that call for reduced deliveries of Arabica beans. “Brazil’s National Coffee Council expects the 2014 and 2015 coffee harvests to produce about 40 million 132-pound bags of coffee each. Its forecast for the current year is about 20% smaller than its original estimate as a severe drought has curbed production,” reports Alexandra Wexler for the Wall Street Journal.
An ongoing draught in Brazil, the world’s largest producer of Arabica beans, has been a familiar catalyst for JO and CAFÉ this year. Last month, Cooparaiso, a cooperative of 3,200 growers in southwestern and southern Mina Gerais, diminished its forecast by 17% to 2.4 million bags, and Cocapec, which represents 2,100 growers in the Alta Mogiana region, said harvests will fall 10% year-over-year. [Slack Brazil Crop Lifts Coffee Yields]
Dwindling Brazilian exports are expected to further propel coffee futures. Citigroup pared its Brazilian forecast to 41.75 million this year from 44.25 million, reports Agrimoney. The bank noted that this year’s drought will affect the 2015 Brazilian coffee crop, saying “next year’s crop should inherently be smaller than the current crop. A sub 40m-bag crop for the 2015-16 year seems unavoidable at this point,” according to Agrimoney.