Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving.
Arabica coffee is surging this session, with September contracts up nearly three percent after fresh rains swept across Brazil's key growing regions, stalling the harvest and tightening near-term supply expectations. Robusta, by contrast, is barely moved, underlining that this is a Brazil-specific arabica story.
Shifting to energy, WTI crude has slipped to a three-and-a-half-month low, off just under one percent, with RBOB gasoline falling nearly two percent alongside it. The pressure comes on two fronts — a dollar index that has climbed to a thirteen-month high, making dollar-denominated commodities more expensive for foreign buyers, and easing Hormuz fears as an international evacuation corridor opens for the more than eleven thousand seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf, signaling that oil flows through that critical chokepoint are resuming with backing from both Iran and the United States.
And on the Fed front, new chairman Kevin Warsh is moving to put his stamp on the institution by personally overseeing the selection of the next Atlanta Fed president, a regional seat that carries a vote on monetary policy and significant influence over the central bank's direction in the months ahead.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
