• Ivory Coast port deliveries for 1–7 December came in at 85,000 tons – the first week below 100,000 after a four-week streak, raising concern that the tail of the main crop may underperform.
• TRS reports no improvement in farm maintenance or labour availability in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana; younger workers continue to shift into rubber, palm oil and mining.
• New York and London cocoa futures jumped 3–4% across the front of the curve as the market refocused on supply risk, while certified US stocks fell again and UK stocks rose.
• The EU’s political agreement to postpone EUDR implementation by 12 months removes immediate compliance pressure but does nothing to fix structural production problems in West Africa.

After Monday’s indecisive trade, cocoa futures finally moved – violently. New York March gained more than 170 dollars and London March over 130 pounds in a single session as traders reacted to signs that Ivory Coast arrivals may be losing momentum sooner than hoped. The market is no longer just debating whether early-season arrivals are “strong” or “distorted by liquidity”; it is starting to price the risk that the main crop’s tail is simply smaller.

The rally was driven by supply headlines, not by a sudden improvement in demand. Exporter liquidity in Ivory Coast remains tight, farm maintenance is still poor, and labour is scarce. Today’s move is the market waking up – again – to problems it has been trying to ignore for weeks.

TRS reports no visible improvement in farm maintenance in either Côte d’Ivoire or Ghana. Weeding, pruning and replanting remain underfunded. Labour is tight:

• In Côte d’Ivoire, younger workers are shifting towards rubber and palm oil, where work is perceived as easier and more predictable.
• In Ghana, youth migration into mining regions is draining the labour pool for cocoa.

These are not short-term issues. They are structural. Fewer young people want to work in cocoa at current farmgate economics. Even if weather cooperates in the next few months, this under-investment will drag on yields for multiple seasons.

The EUDR postponement – now politically agreed for a further 12 months – buys time for exporters, grinders and regulators, but it does not magically create more well-maintained cocoa trees. It simply delays the moment when poorly documented, poorly mapped farms collide with strict EU import rules. Structurally, nothing has improved on the ground.

Exporters estimate that about 85,000 tons of cocoa were delivered to Ivory Coast ports between 1 and 7 December, essentially flat versus the same week a year earlier. That headline, on its own, looks benign.

Two points matter:

1. Break in the 100k-plus streak
   Dealers note that this 85,000-ton figure ends a four-week run of 100,000 tons or more. The market had been leaning on that series of strong weeks to argue that early-season supply was robust and that fears of a tight 2025/26 crop were overdone. That argument now looks weaker.
2. Sign of a weaker tail?
   Some traders see this as the first concrete sign that the tail of the main crop could disappoint. It is still only one week of data, but coming on top of chronic farm-maintenance and labour issues, it carries more weight than usual.

Season-to-date arrivals remain only slightly below last year – roughly 2% down – but the quality of the signal is deteriorating. If weekly arrivals continue slipping while exporters still struggle to finance purchases and shipments, the market will have to reassess how much cocoa is genuinely available to flow to terminals in Q1–Q2.

The political agreement to postpone EUDR enforcement by 12 months reduces the near-term risk of logistical chaos and rejected shipments into the EU. For prices, this postponement is mildly supportive medium-term: it keeps EU demand engaged, avoids sudden demand shocks, and gives supply chains more time to adapt. But it does nothing to offset the fundamental supply squeeze created by ageing trees, poor farm maintenance and labour flight.

Weather conditions

Weather commentary is largely unchanged versus yesterday:

Ivory Coast is firmly in the dry season. Light, scattered showers combined with high temperatures have kept pods developing for the February–March harvest window, but soil moisture is fragile. The key risk remains the Harmattan. If the dry wind strengthens meaningfully in the next few weeks, small pods could abort and larger pods could shrink or ripen poorly, especially in central and northern belts where rainfall has already been patchy.

Futures Performance

New York Cocoa

The deeper into the strip you go, the stronger the rally. This is a curve-wide repricing of supply risk, not just short covering in the nearby. Gains of +169 to +179 USD in Mar–Jul confirm the market is adjusting to the possibility of a weaker main crop tail.

London Cocoa

London mirrored New York: strong, uniform gains across all front-four maturities. The consistency (+139 to +154) signals broad short-covering and re-hedging rather than speculative distortion.

US–UK spread

$5,887−(4,268£×1.332$/£)=$215

That is only slightly below yesterday’s 222-dollar differential. In other words, today’s rally did not materially change the relative pricing between New York and London; both markets re-rated higher together.

Volume and Open Interest

New York Cocoa (ICE US)

London Cocoa (ICE Europe)

Volumes rose sharply in New York on 9 December, climbing from 25,154 to 29,715 contracts, indicating broad participation in the upside move. Open interest has not yet been published for the session, but the preceding trend shows steady positioning in the 120–122k range.

In London, volumes declined from 22,942 to 20,383, consistent with the market’s ongoing liquidity constraints. Open interest has not yet been updated, but recent data show London maintaining a stable 160k+ profile. The lower participation level suggests that the price rally there was driven primarily by short-covering in a thinner market, rather than strong new speculative buying.

Despite the different volume dynamics, the synchronized rally across both exchanges reinforces that the arrival data shift in Ivory Coast, combined with persistent structural supply concerns, was the dominant driver of today’s price action.

Certified stocks

Latest certified warehouse figures:

• US certified stocks: 1,672,131 tons (down 3,670 tons from 1,675,801).
• UK certified stocks: 740,938 tons (up 8,750 tons from 732,188).

The small drop in US stocks keeps the overall trend gently lower, consistent with a tight deliverable base. The rise in UK stocks is notable but not game-changing; even with this increase, certified inventory in Europe remains modest relative to recent years and does not eliminate the risk of localized tightness.

The combination – falling US stocks, rising UK stocks – keeps a lid on any extreme “squeeze” narrative but provides enough ammunition for bulls to argue that global deliverable supply is not comfortable.

Intraday / short-term outlook

This was a big up-day, but the broader picture has not flipped to bullish yet.

• The market is still in a bear-market rally on the higher-timeframe charts. Today’s spike pushes New York back toward the 5,900–6,000 band, but the heavy resistance zone remains roughly 5,900–6,200 and then 6,400 above that.
• Until prices break and hold above those levels on strong volume and with rising open interest, rallies remain vulnerable to brutal reversals.
• On the downside, the new short-term support zone sits near 5,650–5,700 in March New York. A clean break back below that region would tell you that today’s move was mostly short-covering and that the larger downtrend is reasserting itself.

For now, the market has been reminded that supply is fragile, arrivals are not guaranteed, and labour and farm-maintenance issues are real. The risk is that traders overreact to a single week’s arrival data and chase prices too aggressively into resistance. Anyone long needs to respect that risk and manage size accordingly.

If you notice any discrepancies in these figures or have extra information, please email hello@cocoaintel.com or leave a comment – corrections and additional insights are always welcome.

Cocoa Calendar

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