NEW YORK: Orange juice futures eked out a small gain Friday, posting a second consecutive weekly rise, as the market awaited news from the US Food and Drug Administration on a banned fungicide in juice imports.
The OJ market extended gains after the previous session's biggest one-day rise in nearly a month. Traders said juice futures should continue to hold above technical support near $1.75 per lb due to lingering uncertainty about FDA's decision on Brazilian juice imports.
Benchmark May frozen concentrated orange juice rose 0.2 cent to close at $1.84 per lb, after dealing from $1.813 to $1.865. May ended the week with a 1 percent gain.
The nearby March contract, however, ended down 1.25 cent at $1.8605 a lb in extremely thin trade.
Prices have party recovered after losing around a fifth of their value since the March contract soared to an all-time high of $2.2695 on Jan. 23, over speculation of a US ban on Brazilian juice imports.
Last Friday, the market rallied over 1 percent after the FDA had turned down a request to change its acceptable levels of carbendazim, a fungicide commonly used in the Brazilian orange juice industry.
The FDA's decision will likely force Brazil, the world's top OJ producer, to stop exporting concentrated orange juice to the United States.
Volume on Friday reached 1,783 lots late in New York business, preliminary Reuters data showed, down nearly half from Thursday, when about 3,000 lots traded hands.
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