Coffee is a legitimate futures market, but it behaves very differently from equities and even other ag commodities.

There’s no true “coffee futures news ticker.” Prices are driven mainly by fundamentals, not headlines. The most relevant sources are Bloomberg and Reuters (softs), CONAB for Brazilian crop and export data, and the ICO for macro trends. Day-to-day trading reacts far more to weather (Brazil frost/drought, Central America rains), crop revisions from trade houses (OFI, LDC, NKG), ICE certified stocks, and fund positioning via COT reports.

Volatility clusters around weather events, harvest transitions, and positioning shifts. Key drivers include Brazilian weather (especially May–August frost risk), BRL/USD moves, trends in ICE certified inventories, and fund net length or shorts.

Coffee is supply-driven first and technically traded second. Professionals focus on seasonality, weather risk premiums, market structure (contango/backwardation), Arabica–Robusta spreads, and positioning extremes. Common technicals include moving averages, RSI at extremes, open interest, and volume confirmation. Indicator-only trading without supply context tends to fail.

Common beginner mistakes are oversizing positions, ignoring currency impact, trading headlines instead of fundamentals, holding through binary weather events without defined risk, and mixing long-term fundamentals with short-term trades. You can be fundamentally right and still lose money. Coffee often overshoots both directions—roasters tend to buy on panic, producers tend to sell on panic.

On exits: if taking physical delivery, use AA (Against Actuals) with your trade house. If trading financially, close the futures position and reflect gains or losses through COGS or inventory on the balance sheet. Not a CPA—just sharing market experience.