Just caught something interesting in the coffee market today. Both arabica and robusta futures rallied pretty hard on Thursday - arabica up nearly 1.65% and robusta jumping 2%, which is solid movement for these contracts. The trigger was the Brazilian real strengthening to a 1.75-year high, which actually discouraged Brazilian producers from selling, causing some short covering in coffee futures.

Here's what's been weighing on prices the past couple weeks though: Brazil's looking at a record coffee harvest, Vietnam's cranking out massive robusta exports (up 38% year-over-year in January alone), and inventories have been recovering. Colombia's production dropped 34%, which is one bright spot, but it's not enough to offset the global supply picture. The USDA's projecting world production will hit a record 178.8 million bags next season.

So this bounce is interesting because it shows how currency moves can trigger technical trading in coffee futures, but the fundamental story - tons of supply coming - hasn't really changed. Keep watching those Brazilian weather reports and export numbers if you're tracking this market. The barchart coffee futures data has been pretty useful for following these supply shifts.