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"Bond Recoveries Or Chocolate": Ivory Coast Issues Ultimatum With Cocoa Export Ban, As Chocolate Prices Set To Surge Monday
When a week ago we observed the Onionesque reality of life in the Ivory Coast, where deposed president Gbagbo is threatening to wipe out bondholders of $2.3 billion in debt (Corporate Ticker: NUTZ) unless he becomes formally recognized, we made the following bold prediction: "we are sure that Blythe Masters and her team were recently in
Yamoussoukro discussing the most effective way to corner the cocoa
market (paper Cocoa ETF?), thus getting the price of the sweet powder up
by a few trillion percent (in exchange for a nice 25% of all upside
going to Jamie Dimon's firm of course)." Sure enough, when it comes to our track record of macabre predictions we continue to be near 100%. The FT has just reported that Alassane Ouattara, Laurent Gbagbo's opponent in the presidential election (and the man formally acknowledged by the UN as the country's president) has just imposed a one-month export ban of cocoa, ostensibly in an attempt to oust Laurent Gbagbo. In other words, the international community has to choose: bond recoveries or chocolate. That said, we are certain that it is none other than noted commodity market cornering expert JPM that can claim league table advisory credit for what according to the FT will be a 10% jump in the price of cocoa on opening Monday. The immediate retaliation by Gbagbo will most certainly be to force a technical default on the country's bonds which are already in their grace period, and start a localized mini liquidity (and solvency) crisis in Africa... As if the developed world did not have enough of those as is. And in the meantime, we sense a great disturbance in the inflationary Force, as if millions of fatty voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. Prepare for the next round of food inflation worldwide.
Cocoa is the main source of income for the government of Ivory Coast and any stoppage in exports would cut the funding Mr Gbagbo relies on to pay loyal civil servants and the military. Diplomats believe he needs about $150m a month.
Any reduction in supply is likely to push the price of the commodity used in chocolate towards a 33-year high because Ivory Coast accounts for about 40 per cent of global cocoa exports. The cocoa market closed on Friday at a 6-month high of £2,114 per tonne and traders fear prices could jump as high as 10 per cent on opening on Monday.
Alassane Ouattara, acknowledged by the UN as the victor in the recent disputed presidential election, sent a letter to leading cocoa exporters on Sunday ordering them to stop overseas shipments from Monday 24 until February 23.“I am informing you to stop immediately all the exports of cocoa and coffee,” the letter, signed by Jeannot Ahoussou Kouadio, an ally of Mr Ouattara, says. “All operators which contravene this instructions would be exposed to national and international sanctions,” the letter, dated January 22, adds.
“Therefore, the registry of cocoa and coffee exports … is suspended,” the letter says. The Financial Times has obtained a copy of the letter, which was received by several top cocoa and coffee exporters in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast.
The decision to press for a cocoa blockade, comes as the European Union has tightened its own sanctions regime on Ivory Coast. Regional efforts to resolve the post election impasse in Ivory Coast continue to founder, however, leaving the country teetering on the verge of a new civil war.
West African states have warned they will use “legitimate force” to oust Laurent Gbagbo, who maintains control of the country’s army, if he continues to refuse to honour the UN-certified results of last November’s polls, which gave victory to Mr Ouattara.
Guess what this means for food producer margins? Nothing good:
Cocoa traders have taken the letter seriously and warned that exports could stop on Monday. “This is very serious; we have few options,” said the head of a leading trading house.
The world’s largest cocoa traders, including Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Barry Callebaut, Olam and Armajaro, were planning an emergency conference call on Sunday evening with the Federation of Cocoa Commerce, the industry body, to discuss the situation, said one person with knowledge of the conversations.
The FCC and the European Cocoa Association will co-ordinate the traders’ efforts on Monday. They were planning to send a letter to Mr Ouattara’s parallel government asking for some clarifications.
The letter imposing the export embargo allows the traders to continue buying cocoa in the local market, but traders warned that, without exports, the domestic warehouses at the port cities of Abidjan and San Pedro will soon fill.
All in all, another week of commodity fireworks is set to be unleashed. For those who took Standard Chartered's advice to "buy the West African dip" our condolences: "Standard Bank sees “significant upside potential” if a resolution to the dispute can be found, which may make the country’s debt sub-Saharan Africa’s best-performing international sovereign notes this year." For everyone else who took our tongue in cheek advice and bought the Cocoa non-commercial futures on the ICE, at 43,664 at last check, congratulations.
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deficits dont matter, but chocolate does.
Economy not going anywhere for awhile? Grab a Snickers.
They'll either give him something to appease him or send in the gunships.
A military invasion designed to secure the resources of one of the world's largest cocoa producing nations doesn't seem so far-fetched.
Ya. Sometimes you just gotta grab persephone and drag her down to the pit and rape her when she withholds the harvest. That'll turn her back into cheerful and compliant. Or a music video one or the other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqQn2ADZE1A&ob=av3el
Choc Finger, bitchez!
women around the world will protest!
A one month ban on chocolate would be good for most of us. I'm too fat. Of course being fat might come in handy one of these days.
If you eat the 90% chocolat it actually makes you lose weight.
I'm hooked on it, I eat one bar almost every day and I can still see my dick when I look down :)
That's due to the angle of your forehead not your waist line.
I eat the 85% and I agree with you
"I eat the 85% and I agree with you"
You agree with what? You, too, can see Sudden Debt's dick when you look down?
No silly, when he eats the chocolate.
By the way, both my wife and doctor tell me that for every 5 lbs. a guy looses, his goofy grows by an inch. I tried that and couldn't seem to make it work so one of my buddies in the Peace Corps who'd just come home from Africa told me about how some in this one tribe make theirs so huge, by hanging about 25lbs of weights on the end.
So I tried it and after a few days my wife asked me if it'd done anything. I told her that it hadn't started to get bigger but sure was getting black.
Your goofy has grown tremendously, don't know about your dick, however.
For all you "men" out there who really want to know were they "stand" here is a link to a condom study to measure the size of the "Average Mr. Goofy".
http://www.mraverage.com/results.htm
Perhaps he meant when he looks up.
I found a 100% bar. I tried to choke it down, but it was pretty vile. 90% is awesome, though. Lots of fiber. You are right, even if the other 10% is all sugar, the nutrition profile is better than fruit.
I have to wonder, though. What if the black swan everyone keeps scanning the skies for was actually just dark. As in chocolate?
Maybe you should change your name to roberto carbos.
My name is Robert O'Carlos. I'm Irish.
Picky, picky.
Thanks for being brave enough to enter the fray.
I sense a wb7 work upcoming with Gbagbo around a table plotting his revenge with his cohorts..the Quik bunny, Count Chocula... lol.
FYI Standard Bank is not the same as Standard Chartered....
Beans in our time.
Potatoes.
Short growing season and the skins are loaded with vitamines. Potato chips,frys, curly frys, skins, mashed, boiled, baked. I once even tried a Swedish potato sausage. (Ug.)
The possibilities are endless.
Who needs cocoa?
fries will kill you
http://www.nowpublic.com/health/french-fries-would-you-acrylamide-those
Potatoes are awfully delicious distilled.
Potato Vodka Bitchez!
BTFD!
PMS without chocolate? There will be riots in the streets. I'm stocking up today.....with two at home, I won't be safe in my own house.
Tell the teleprompter in chief to declare a national emergency!
Just in time for Valentines Day
Most of that Valentine's Day chocolate already on the shelves.
Also, loads of chocolate elsewhere. Ivory Coast not the main thing at all. I suspect this will backfire.
Just like the gas stations. "Chocolate" from somewhere is already on the shelves. It has probably been sitting in unsold inventory from last year. The prices will pop on the shelves just like at the gas station because they have to figure replacement cost.
Tyler, the cacao for Cote D'or commes from Brazil. Cote d'or buys all it's cacao from the rainforest alliance.
I should cut back anyway.
CHOCOLAT IS GOOD FOR YOU!
It really is. Unless you buy that cheap no good foreign/not Belgium chocolat :)
What about the Ritter Sport? Those are good
sorry that is awful as well. It is impossible to find good chocolate nowadays. Even the 70% varieties is bad. It is laced with fat. Some even have fat straight from the pork's belly. Next time you eat a Haagen Dasz cone think of a little pig - I am not touching that shit any more Well, I guess middle-class people like myself will never know what good chocolate tastes.
Scary but true.
Lindt 80% plus is quality. Perugina ain't bad. Godiva mostly sucks, but their 85% cocoa is ok. Green & Blacks 80% is ok. There are a bunch of others, I'm a complete addict.
I don't care what anybody says, I love peanut M&Ms.
just in time for easter! no chocolate bunny for you!!!
That tradition will never go.
My wife always hides the eggs in the garden and then we go look for them.
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSm9g97PsJIGP5anLQ8ci2xA3mOXsAeMUOPBRD-PR6EafmJunkgwQ&t=1
Holy unencumbered nonallocated Easter whoopee, SD. I don't think that's the chocolate that every-body else has been referring to here.
She could stash my huevos any day.
Easter? Sooner. Try Feb 14th.
Future world history.
The St. Valentines Day Cocoa Massacre.
Price of gold plummets as sell off fuels massive buying of cocoa.
Black marketeers selling carob covered confections as counterfeit chocolate.
Boxes of assorted chocolate cannot be found, rioting in streets as spurned lovers vent sexual frustration.
The dreaded black swan event.
Obama will tell us not to buy "blood chocolate"!
guys, I just wanted to say thank you for telling us ahead of time, meaning I am long already ...
I have 3 bars hidden that I'm supposed to forget I have for a rainy day. Curse my good memory.
I have just buried my first chocolate filled PVC vault out by my ammo/PM vaults. More to worry about. The question is: How long will it take Nadler to claim you can't eat chocolate or name it a barbarous relic?
Make sure those bars don't have any tungsten in them! :>D
Well, there go my long positions in whip cream and mini-marshmallow futures.
Free the Chocolate!
"we sense a great disturbance in the inflationary Force, as if millions of fatty voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. "
This is the only time i've LOL'd today. Tyler, you are the financial journalist of the Millenium.
Can't believe I had to scroll this far down for some love for the SW reference.
TPTB can't win. If you strike Tyler down, he shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Death by Chocolate!
should i sell NIB when it gets to 50?
Better not be messin with my coco puffs!
Oh, I can see it now:
"no blood for chocolate!"
CDS: credit default s'mores
I think I'm going to replace my pile of gold bars with a pile of chocolate bars
gold foil wrapped
chocolate coins
win win ..
it's all good ...
Reuters-
America Hits it Rich!
In response to pressure by Ron Paul and assorted other truthers, birthers, gold bugs, constitutionalists, free speechers, trans fat lovers, anti-animal cruelty advocates, francophiles, Trekkies, Whovians, stamp, toe nail and booger collectors and numismatists, the result of a physical audit of the gold vault at Fort Knox was made public today, which disclosed that the entire stock of precious substances held above ground was comprised of thirteen thin plastic mesh bags each containing 17 chocolate "coins" covered by thin gold colored tin foil wrappers imprinted with the motto "Happy Easter, 1933".
Upon release of the audited statements, due to the world wide shortage of cocoa in conjunction with a rumored cornering of all deliverable stocks of cocoa in futures settlement warehouses by Blthye, Masters & Co., a recently spun-off division of J.P.Morgan & Co. in order to make believe that they were in compliance with the to be Frankly-Dodge the Question Financial Three Card Monte and Optical Solutions Law, the price of cocoa reached all time highs.
Having become the most precious commodity on earth due to the bankruptcy of Ivory Coast bondholders when they responded "What the Fuck?" to the demand for formal recognition by Vinnie the Barkeep at the Momma Scrotum's Italian Resturant in Navarro, Mexico and America's alleged nocturnal spraying of the illegal chemical Agent Orange over the majority of the Ivory Coast, the US dollar surged to new all time highs versus all foreign currencies.
In response to the actions, at a hastily held news conference, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner issued a joint statement proclaiming "Fuck."
Conspiracy theorists were once again quick to point out that this was yet another goober-mental activity designed to divert attention from the growing social strains sometimes manifesting itself as public disturbances of the terms of Snooki's release from jail for public drunkenness.
(article to be redacted as soon as possible)
It's a coockoo for cocoa puffs consipiracy. They is manpilating our junkie habit!!!
I still say those nocturnal emissions was a bad dream of being trapped in a elevator while snooki sprays her hair spray all over.
Doesn't impact harvesting, even though the main harvest is months out. Its all going to market sooner or later because they must have the dough. There is big powewrful money and people in the bean export biz.
Might want to look at shorting something a little further out.
Couldn't resist this one. This is from maxkeiser.com:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_rnN3mbqgIJ0/TTyXp00lT8I/AAAAAAAACsc/us-CX0R9QRU/s4...Any of you big apple dudes tried Jacques Torres Chocolates?
No 1984/ chocolate rations references yet?
Note to self: Buy a chocolate gun before it's too late.
Political instability bitchezzzz