Cocoa futures plunged over 8% to near $5,500 per tonne, the lowest since early December, reflecting some profit-taking and repositioning by agents who had been betting on flows associated with the return of cocoa futures contracts in the Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM) starting on January 8. The inclusion was set to trigger approximately 30,000–40,000 lots of index-related purchases through January 14. In the meantime, the market turned its attention to next week’s Q4 grind data for Europe, the US and Asia, which is expected to show that demand remains weak.
