Posted on 01/18/2007 2:02:01 PM PST by BurbankKarl
Frozen-concentrated orange-juice futures on the New York Board of Trade set highs on speculative buying and news that a freeze in central California has possibly destroyed as much as three-fourths of the state's citrus crop.
Most-active March FCOJ rose 7.10 cents to $2.0755 a pound. The contract set a high of $2.0760, the strongest price ever for a March contract and the highest on a monthly continuation basis since December, when the front-month futures rose to $2.0940.
News that California lost from 50% to 75% of its citrus crop to subfreezing temperatures over the past several days was generally viewed as bullish for prices, even though 90% of oranges there are sold as fresh fruit and the remainder are processed into juice.
Some analysts, however, said the freeze is actually bearish for the market since California growers will salvage what fruit they can and put it into juice, thereby increasing juice supplies. Others counter California's lack of major processing facilities will prevent all of those oranges from being juiced and supplies will not rise.
"There's no real processors out in California, so there's no way they'll be able to get all of that fruit processed in time," said Jack Scoville, analyst and vice president of Price Futures Group in Chicago.
One trader said the freeze provided a psychological lift for prices amid smaller overall supplies.
The loss to the California crop comes at a time when Florida -- the nation's No. 1 orange producer -- is growing its smallest crop in 17 years, so shrinking U.S. supplies are viewed as bullish for prices.
The freeze has more than doubled wholesale orange prices out West, and values continue to climb, said Bob Blakely, director of grower services at California Citrus Mutual in Exeter, Calif.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Where's Eddie Murphy when you need him?
20 seconds Karl.
ROTFLMAO
where is the loss, if salvage what they can? Why is there such a panic. This does happen sometimes and the florida juice covers the demand....
"I am Lionel Joseph from Cameroon..."
Mr. Blakely said $960.9 million of oranges were exposed to the killing cold.
The price of an orange has doubled in CA in a week.
Build more refineries!
Oh, wait, it's California.
some of that can still be salvaged.
"Pork bellies, which are used to make bacon, as in a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich."
So. If you cant eat them, or juice them, I guess you use em as biomass in your methane digester.
I believe there's also some citrus located in the Rio Grande Valley in far south Texas.
But I'm sure in terms of tonnage, it's not enough to make up for the losses in California.
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