NY juice closes higher as market stays in range

NEW YORK: Orange juice futures ended higher Monday on investor buying as players seem content to keep the market range-bound while waiting for possible weather threats to the citrus growing state of Florida, analysts said.

The key November frozen concentrated orange juice futures rose 0.40 cent to end at $1.6315 per lb, dealing from $1.627 to $1.6545.

Volume was around 500 lots at 1:49 p.m. EDT (1749 GMT), nearly four-fifths less than the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data showed.

The Price Group analyst Jack Scoville said juice contracts had lost ground because there is no storm at this time posing a threat to Florida, the leading citrus grower in the United States.

But the weakness caused by the absence of a storm is offset by the fact that the peak period when hurricanes or storms would pose a threat to Florida would normally run through the middle of October.

"We can still see a storm come in and hit Florida. The only time when people will stop worrying about a storm is late in October," a dealer said. The Atlantic hurricane season ends on Nov. 30.

Market participants are also now looking toward release of the monthly supply/demand report from the US Agriculture Department on Oct. 12. That report will contain the first government estimate of Florida's 2011/12 citrus crop.

Some field reports show that citrus fruits are larger than usual, suggesting the USDA report could top private forecasts which pegged the the crop at 140 to 146 million (90-lb) boxes.

The level of investor interest remained near a three-year low as open interest fell to 23,816 lots as of Sept. 16, ICE Futures US data said.

Volume traded on Friday hit 843 lots, against the previous tally of 1,430 lots, exchange data showed.

Copyright Reuters, 2011