Cocoa prices after ICCO bulletins: historical revisions and price comparisons
4 min read · Public
Compare ICCO’s 2024/25 balance revisions and cocoa price paths around three past bulletins. Includes one- and five-session changes, publication-date caveats and continuous-contract limitations.
What happened after previous ICCO bulletins?
This historical comparison separates two questions: how ICCO’s estimates changed, and what cocoa prices did around the publication dates. The price observations are descriptive, not proof that the bulletins caused the moves.
How the same season was revised
All balance figures below refer to 2024/25. Units are thousand tonnes except the ratio.
Bulletin
Production
Grindings
Surplus
Ending stocks
Stocks/grindings
November 2025
4,698
4,602
49
1,324
28.8%
February 2026
4,728
4,606
75
1,347
29.2%
May 2026
4,723
4,628
48
1,320
28.5%
August 2026
4,733
4,649
37
1,309
28.2%
The surplus rose from 49,000 to 75,000 tonnes, then fell to 48,000 and 37,000. May’s reduction of 27,000 tonnes accompanied slightly lower production and higher grindings. August’s smaller surplus accompanied increases in both production and grindings.
The point is revision, not certainty: the estimates for a completed season continued to evolve. ICCO’s net-crop adjustment means the surplus is not simply gross production minus grindings.
Price series and method: read before using the table
The prices below are stored Yahoo Finance CC=F daily closes from Cocoa Market Hub’s historical dataset, retrieved on 12 November 2026, in US dollars per tonne. CC=F is a continuous/front-contract proxy. The stored rows do not identify the underlying contract and their roll status is unverified.
Consequently, this is a contextual price comparison, not a validated same-contract event study or a tradable backtest. Contract rolls may distort changes. No intraday release timestamp has been established, and a daily close may precede or follow public dissemination.
“Next” and “fifth” mean the next and fifth subsequent trading observations in the stored series. Percentage changes use the anchor-date close as the denominator; they exclude the anchor day’s move.
Bulletin anchor
Anchor close
Next session close
Change
Fifth subsequent session close
Change
28 November 2025
5,404
1 December: 5,456
+0.96%
5 December: 5,643
+4.42%
29 May 2026
3,923
1 June: 3,895
-0.71%
5 June: 3,762
-4.10%
31 August 2026
6,650
1 September: 6,552
-1.47%
8 September: 5,886
-11.49%
Publication-date caveats
November 2025 and May 2026 have explicit release datelines. For August, the official article mistakenly begins with a May dateline, but its listing and page metadata show 31 August; we use that web-publication date as the anchor.
The February article is dated 27 February, while its web metadata shows 2 March. We include its statistical revision but exclude it from the price table rather than select an uncertain event date.
The August anchor was also a UK bank holiday, while the following interval crossed a US holiday. Trading-session spacing and cross-market participation therefore differ from a routine week.
What the examples actually show
The three sampled price paths differed. A smaller surplus in May did not coincide with a higher close five subsequent sessions later. August’s still-smaller surplus also preceded a lower fifth-session close in this proxy. November’s path was higher.
That is a reason to investigate the wider market, not to conclude that surplus reductions are bearish. Expectations, other headlines, positioning and contract transitions remain uncontrolled. Three selected observations cannot establish a reliable probability or average trading edge.
How to build a stronger event study
Verify the first public-release timestamp. Use the same named futures contract before and after it. Identify holidays, expiry and rolls. Record competing news and measure both the initial response and subsequent persistence across a larger, consistently selected sample.
Until those checks are complete, use this table to frame questions, not to forecast November’s direction.
Follow cocoa research with our free Morning Brief, scheduled Monday–Friday at 7am UK. Sign up for free email updates ↗ and select Morning Brief. No paid membership is required to receive it.
Figures reproduce the respective public bulletins rather than silently replacing earlier estimates with later revisions. Price changes are calculated from the stored observations and are subject to the limitations above.
Additional reading context
Educational explanation added to help interpret this article. It is not a new market update or a revision to the original dated figures.
Testing the market interpretation
Treat the article’s explanation as a hypothesis to test against dated observations. Separate reported facts, comparisons and possible implications. Before accepting a conclusion, identify the contract or physical market involved, check the reporting period and ask whether a different explanation could fit the same evidence.
A useful follow-up records what would strengthen or weaken the interpretation. Seek confirmation in an independent type of evidence rather than several stories repeating the same underlying report. Keep subsequent revisions visible so that an older article remains understandable as a record of the information available at publication.
Published research and personal commentary, not personalised investment advice. Trade ideas can fail; evaluate the assumptions and dated follow-ups. The original published post is preserved.