Orange Juice Drops as Brazilian Forecasts Gets Boost
December 14 2017 - 6:00PM
Dow Jones News
By Julie Wernau
Frozen concentrated orange juice futures ended in a
seventh-straight session of losses on Thursday as bullish traders
who have jumped into the market because of tight production in
Florida unwound from those bets this week.
Frozen concentrated orange juice for January fell 1% to end at
$1.469 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange, the lowest close
since Sept. 25.
The fall comes despite Tuesday's update from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture on the orange crop in Florida, which grows the most
oranges for U.S. juice and was devastated by Hurricane Irma this
year. The agency placed its latest estimate at 46 million boxes,
which would be the lowest orange crop since 1945 in Florida.
Bears in the orange juice market are largely focused on Brazil,
the world's largest orange grower, which is expected to provide
imports for the frozen concentrated orange juice market that will
boost supplies in the U.S.
On Monday, Fundecitrus, a citrus growers and juice manufacturers
association from the state of São Paulo, upgraded its estimate for
the 2017-2018 orange crop to 385.2 million boxes, a 3% bump from
its most recent estimate in September and a 57% increase over last
year's final estimate of 245.31 million boxes.
"While existing stocks in terms of the volume of processed
orange juice on hand is rather low, with demand dropping as it is,
higher stocks are not necessary. Brazil had a strong recovery in
the 2017-18 harvest which is now finishing up and that too will
help to keep the market adequately supplied," said Judy Ganes
Chase, founder of J. Ganes Consulting LLC.
In other markets, raw sugar for March was off 0.6% at 13.77
cents a pound, March cocoa rose 0.3% to end at $1,893 a ton,
arabica coffee for March was up 0.2% to end at $1.203 a pound and
March cotton was up 1.6% to end at 75.33 cents a pound.
Write to Julie Wernau at julie.wernau@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 14, 2017 17:45 ET (22:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.