Cocoa futures ended the trading session unchanged on Tuesday as investors weighed Fitch Ratings’ recent price forecast. Cocoa prices have been on a tear in August, and they are close to eliminating their year-to-date losses amid macro factors and weakening currencies. Can cocoa cement its place above the crucial $2,500 mark?

March cocoa futures were flat at $2,487 per metric tons at 19:20 GMT on Tuesday on the US ICE Futures exchange. Cocoa slumped more than 1% last week, but it is on track for a monthly gain of about 8%. So far this year, cocoa is down about 2%, which has been primarily due to the coronavirus pandemic. Over the last 12 months, cocoa prices have soared more than 11%.

Cocoa has largely benefited from a weaker greenback. The US Dollar Index, which gauges the buck against a basket of currencies, has plunged about 10% since hitting a peak of 103.00 earlier this year. A lower greenback is good for commodities priced in dollars because it makes it cheaper for foreign investors to purchase. This explains the recent increase in agriculture prices, with many of the leading crops climbing to multi-month highs.

The macro fundamentals are further supporting cocoa, as well as its sister commodities. The drop in demand has been limited, and investors have been buying up commodities since opportunities have dried up elsewhere in the broader financial markets.

Industry observers are anticipating a correction in prices and demand for cocoa, as well as a decrease for sugar and coffee.

Carlos Mera Arzeno, senior commodity analyst at Rabobank, told CNBC:

We have company results for food companies that were very encouraging, and supermarket sales continued to do well, so on that side at least, from the company results for Q2, we know that demand was not as bad as it could have been.

Of course, those drops come at a time when we were accustomed to demand growing.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings recently cut its price forecast for cocoa, citing brewing troubles in key West African markets that produce cocoa.

In other agricultural markets, November corn futures rose $0.09, or 2.61%, to $3.54 per pound. November wheat futures picked up $0.0775, or 1.47%, to $5.355 per bushel. November soybean futures soared $0.145, or 1.6%, to $9.2025 a bushel.