Sesame seeds prices continue to remain bearish mainly due to INR depreciation, low demand and panic selling by suppliers/stockists.
Currency: INR depreciated to 75.6 from 74.1-74.3 levels in the last 3 weeks. Thus, the big drop in prices in the last few weeks.
Demand: Overall Winter demand in India has been low, due to late winter and old stocks. This should peak in the coming 1 month.
Winter demand had been good from major importing countries until last few weeks when market started going down and buyers started holding off on new purchases. Chinese New Year demand is over and China is looking to buy for post new year arrivals now.
Ramadan buying will start slowly and we will see peak demand for the same in Jan-Feb.
Supply – New crop fresh arrivals are very low mainly due to low prices.
Trend – Prices may continue to remain range bound (+/- $50/mt) until we have clarity over Indian demand.
These seem to be good levels to consider Q1 purchase.