Raw sugar futures closed firmer on Tuesday on modest speculative buying ahead of a brief break and brokers feel the lack of leads may keep the market pinned in a band the rest of the week. The market will be closed on Wednesday for US Independence Day. Trading reopens on Thursday.
The New York Board of Trade's benchmark October sugar contract gained 0.22 cent to end at 9.46 cents per lb., trading from 9.26 to 9.51 cents. It was an inside day since the range was within Monday's 9.18 to 9.56 cents band. The rest went up 0.18 to 0.20 cent. The IntercontinentalExchange's NYBOT electronic market for sugar showed the October contract up 0.23 cent to 9.47 cents at 1:24 pm.
"It's a bit quiet before the holiday and we just grabbed back what we lost yesterday. It's mostly local buying and it looks like we trade between 9.20 and 9.70/80 (cents, basis October) for now," a brokerage house dealer said.
The market's fundamentals are labouring under a glut of supplies flowing out of top grower Brazil and expectations key importers may not be buying as much as they previously did, analysts said. Sugar contracts popped up at the start of trade, sagged back to near unchanged and then proceeded crawl up to near its highs for the session in dealings becalmed by the approach of the holiday, floor sources said.
"It got up and stayed up, but there was really no outstanding feature to it," one said. "You just sort of expect it to bounce up and down in its trading range." Open-outcry volume around noon was at 1,979 lots, compared to the previous open-outcry tally of 9,268 lots.
Call volume was 14,963 lots and puts 3,236 lots. NYBOT said on Monday's screen trade were 70,474 lots and total volume 79,742 lots. Open interest in the No 11 raw sugar market rose 430 lots to 648,470 lots as of July 2. No deals were done in the ethanol market. US domestic sugar prices ended mixed.
The September contract rose 0.28 to 21.88 cents per lb. while November added 0.04 to 21.14 cents. The rest were flat. Screen volume traded on Monday in the No 14 sugar market hit 314 lots and 12 lots were traded in the pit. The electronic No 14 sugar market saw the September contract increased 0.30 to 21.90 cents at 1:25 pm.