Wednesday, January 11, 2012

And That's Why We Don't Trade Orange Juice: "Orange Juice Tumbles Most in Two Years as ICE Boosts Margins"

Following up on yesterday's And That's Why We Don't Trade Orange Juice: "Commodities Near Their Highest for a Month; Orange Juice Soars".

I'm not saying you need to be a trend-following auto-trader but as long as I've been at the markets O.J. has struck me as the craziest.
And I'm not trying to be dramatic with that characterization, I'm talking get 'em to the E.R, shoot 'em full of Haldol crazy.

From BusinessWeek:
Orange juice tumbled from a four- year high, capping the biggest drop in two years, after ICE Futures U.S. boosted the amount of cash that traders must deposit for speculative positions by 95 percent.

Prices soared 17 percent in the past two days on concern that a freeze in Florida damaged citrus groves and that a U.S. probe of a fungicide used on fruit in Brazil, the world’s largest orange grower, may limit imports. The New York exchange almost doubled the initial margin for a speculative contract to $5,040 from $2,590. As of yesterday, each contract for 15,000 pounds (6.8 metric tons) of juice was valued at $31,162.50.
“Margin calls will force some people out of the market,” Sterling Smith, an analyst with Country Hedging in St. Paul, Minnesota, said in an e-mail.

Orange-juice futures for March delivery slumped 9.5 percent to settle at $1.881 a pound at 2 p.m. on ICE in New York. That was the biggest drop for a most-active contract since Jan. 11, 2010. Estimated volume rose to 6,762, the highest in three months.

Yesterday, the contract surged by the exchange limit for a second straight day. Prices advanced 11 percent, the most in five years, to $2.0775, the highest since March 2007. The record was $2.094 on Dec. 7, 2006....MORE