LONDON: Sugar fell from Wedneday's three- month high in New York as traders took profits before the return of rains to growing areas of leading producer Brazil, where dryness threatens to cut this year's crop. Coffee slid. 

 

Sugar futures advanced 12% in February, heading for the biggest monthly gain since September. 

 

Dry weather in Brazil's centre south, the main growing area, will mean a crop of 570 million tonne from an earlier estimate of 610 million tonne, says Copersucar. Prices rose above 18 cents a pound on Wednesday for the first time since November. 

 

"The bears are continuing where they left off from Wednesday," Thomas Kujawa, the cohead of soft commodities at Sucden Financial in London, said in an e-mailed report. 

 

They are pointing to forecasts for scattered showers in Brazil and the lack of "gravity, substance, or soul to the recent upturn which they view as just a 'technical' anomaly rally." Raw sugar for delivery in May slid 1.5% to 17.41 cents a pound on ICE Futures US in New York.