Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Crude oil is driving the action in soft commodities today, with WTI plunging seven percent to a one-and-a-half-week low and dragging sugar prices down with it. New York world sugar fell more than one percent, while London white sugar slid to a five-week low. The energy-to-ethanol link makes sugar particularly sensitive to crude moves, and today that connection is on full display.
Staying in soft commodities, cocoa is also under pressure, with both New York and London contracts off roughly a third of a percent. The culprit there is supply-side rather than macro — ICE cocoa inventories have been climbing steadily, and rising warehouse stocks signal demand is not keeping pace with available supply, pushing London cocoa to a three-week low.
Shifting to the broader economy, the data center construction boom is sending real inflationary shockwaves through the industrial economy. Spending on data centers and power plants has spiked sharply, pulling up equipment orders at American manufacturers and pushing nonresidential construction costs into a second wave of inflation. The artificial intelligence buildout is no longer just a Wall Street story — it is showing up in concrete and steel.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
