FCOJ Review: Jan Rallies 2%; Spillover Commodity Strength

Orange juice futures for nearby delivery rallied 2% on speculative buying backed by a weak U.S. dollar and strength in the commodity indexes. Trading will be closed Thursday for Thanksgiving. It will reopen Friday morning for an abbreviated holiday session.

Nearby January frozen concentrated orange juice futures rose 220 points to settle at $1.1425 on ICE Futures U.S., near the session high of $1.1485. « We just saw some buying that came about from dollar hitting 15-month lows, like most commodities did today, » said one FCOJ broker.

Nearly all markets saw gains Thursday, as commodities keyed on the dollar trading to fresh lows and gold hit record highs. The buying was reflected in the major commodity indexes seeing gains of 2% and higher. There wasn’t much news to influence FCOJ prices, though one demand indicator
showed a slump in wholesale movement.

Movement of Florida FCOJ through wholesale channels fell to 2.22 million gallons in the week ended Nov. 15, from 3.16 million the previous week, the Florida Department of Citrus said. Movement was also down from the year-ago level of 2.43 million gallons.

The report is a snapshot of wholesale orange juice demand, and this lower number is not what bulls want to see, particularly in the face of strengthening retail demand the last seven months, a broker said.

Source : FutureSource