RTRS:SOFTS-Sugar, coffee steady, hopes of Greek deal support
LONDON Feb 9 (Reuters) - Raw sugar, arabica coffee and cocoa futures were steady in early trade on Thursday, as Greece neared agreement on a bailout deal, helping encourage appetite for riskier assets.
SUGAR
* Raw sugar prices were slightly higher, continuing to lack any impetus to a break out of the recent 23-25 cent range.
* March raw sugar futures on ICE stood 0.02 cent or 0.1 percent higher at 24.50 cents a lb at 0914 GMT.
* A bullish target at 25.01 cents per lb has been aborted for New York sugar as it is expected to retrace to 23.73 cents first, according to Reuters analyst Wang Tao.
* ED&F Man Sugar Ltd has secured a tender to supply 25,000 tonnes of sugar to Bangladesh at $670.59, including cost and freight, a senior procurement official said on Thursday.
* London March white sugar futures rose $1.10 or 0.2 percent to $648.10 per tonne.
COFFEE
* Coffee futures inched up with dealers eyeing slow sales on the physical market from top producers Vietnam and Brazil.
* Arabica coffee futures on ICE edged up with March up 1.45 cent or 0.7 percent at $2.2150 per lb.
* Top coffee producer Brazil shipped 1.86 million 60-kg bags of unroasted, green beans in January, down 28 percent from 2.59 million bags in the same month of 2011, the Council of Green Coffee Exporters, Cecafe, said on Wednesday.
* New York coffee faces resistance at $2.2425 per lb, and only a break above it could trigger a further gain to $2.2750, according to Reuters analyst Wang Tao..
* May robusta coffee on Liffe rose $14 or 0.7 percent to $1,904 a tonne.
COCOA
* Cocoa futures on ICE edged lower in early trade with May down $8 or 0.4 percent to $2,255 a tonne.
* Ivory Coast has launched a reform of its cocoa sector aimed at guaranteeing minimum prices for the hundreds of thousands of farmers whose livelihoods depend on it.
* Deliveries of cocoa to warehouses in Brazil's top growing state Bahia slipped in the past week, the Bahia Commercial Association said, but output for the time of year has kept above average for weeks even as the main crop fades.
* New York cocoa will drop to $2,202 per tonne, as indicated by its wave pattern and a Fibonacci projection analysis, according to Reuters analyst Wang Tao.
OTHER MARKETS
* The rally in the euro and European shares advanced on Thursday as Greece edged closer to a bailout deal and on expectations the Bank of England and the European Central Bank will maintain support for the move into riskier assets.
* Brent crude held near six-month highs above $117 on Thursday on hopes that demand would pick up as Greece inched closer to getting its debt crisis under control, while concerns over supply disruption from the Middle East provided support.
* The euro hit a fresh two-month high on Thursday on views that Greece was inching closer to a bailout deal even though Greek parties stopped short of signing off on austerity measures. (Reporting by Sarah McFarlane)