Commodities : Thursday, Dec. 19, 1985 : Coffee Futures Prices Soar
From Associated Press
Coffee futures prices soared Thursday on a false rumor that an earthquake in Colombia had damaged growing areas there.
The contract for delivery in March, on which there is no daily price-movement limit, shot up 17 cents a pound on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange in New York before dropping a few cents on profit taking. The other contracts locked at the limit 6-cents-a-pound higher.
“It started out a rather normal day,” said Sandy Kaul, an analyst in New York with Shearson Lehman Brothers. “But then rumors started that an earthquake in Colombia triggered the volcano there and damaged the growing areas,” she said. The underlying strength in the market, she said, remains the damage to the crop in Brazil, the world’s No. 1 grower.
