- Ticker Symbol: CO or CC
- Exchange: ICE
- Trading Hours: 8:00 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. EST.
- Contract Size: 10 metric tons (22,046 lbs.)
- Contract Months: March, May, July, September, December
- Price Quote: price ounce. Ex $1809 per metric ton
- Tick Size: $1.00/metric ton, equivalent to $10.00 per contract.
- Last Trading Day: Eleven business days prior to last business day of delivery month.
The cocoa tree needs a hot and rainy climate (tropical rain forest) in order to thrive and is generally confined to areas not more than 20 degrees north or south of the equator.
The cocoa tree takes about five years after planting to produce cocoa beans and about ten years to achieve maximum production.
Cocoa trees produce pods. Each pod produces from 20 to 50 beans (approximately 400 beans are required to make one pound of chocolate).
Most cocoa is harvested between October and January.
The largest cocoa producing countries are Côte d’Ivoire (40% +), Ghana (15%); Indonesia (14%); Nigeria (5%) and Brazil (4%).
Cocoa crops are susceptible to two main diseases - black pod disease for African crops and a fungus called “witch’s broom” that damaged Brazil's cocoa crop in the 1990s.
Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce about 55% of the world's cocoa. You will learn how unstable these countries are while trading cocoa futures. Political, social and labor issues regularly threaten to decrease or disrupt the supply of cocoa.
The annual world production of cocoa it is about 3 million metric tons.
The Netherlands and the United States each process about 15% of the world's annual cocoa production.
The Quarterly Cocoa Grind numbers measure of ythe amount of cocoa demand. A higher grind number means demand is increasing.
Cocoa is mainly consumed in Europe, North America, Japan and Singapore.
The U.S. consumes about 13% of the world's cocoa; Germany 9.1%; France 7.2%; UK 6.8%)
The US imports cocoa from Latin America; Europe imports from Africa; and Asia imports from Indonesia.
- Cocoa can be a tough market to trade. Cocoa futures prices rarely follow reliable patterns. The worst part is that political problems are always popping up - mainly in Africa. These problems usually control short term price movement.
- There is a mild seasonal pattern for cocoa futures to move higher from June through August.
- Cocoa futures prices have ranged between about 1000 and 2800 since the early 1980s. Cocoa hit a high near 5200 in 1977.
- You will inevitably hear of block pod disease while trading cocoa. A major outbreak can cause prices to move higher.
