Cotton Lower, Orange Juice Futures Higher Ahead of WASDE

Cotton traded lower and frozen concentrated orange juice futures traded higher ahead of key reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the impact of hurricanes on both commodities.

Cotton for December lost 1.1% to 67.94 cents a pound, and orange juice for November was up 0.8% at $1.6385 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange.

"Today's updated balance sheets for cotton could carry very large consequences, especially if the USDA has determined that recent hurricanes did not significantly affect US production potential," Rose Commodities Group said in a note.

In the cotton market, analysts surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect U.S. production to be slightly lower than last month's estimate at 21.3 million bales, compared with 21.76 million in September, with slightly lower export projections leaving ending stock at 5.74 million bales versus 6 million bales last month. Hurricane Harvey impacted crops in Texas, the largest U.S. growing region.

Analysts saw very little change to world figures over last month and left ending stock the same at 92.54 million bales.

Following devastating losses in Florida because of Hurricane Irma, analysts polled by the Wall Street Journal are expecting the smallest orange crop since 1946 at an average of 50.60 million boxes, with forecasts ranging from a low of 31 million boxes to a high of 62.5 million boxes. The October forecast will be the USDA's first of the 2017-2018 season.

In other markets, raw sugar for March was down 2% at 14.01 cents a pound, cocoa for December lost 0.2% at $2,092 a ton and December arabica coffee was off 0.8% at $1.257 a pound.

Write to Julie Wernau at julie.wernau@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 12, 2017 12:22 ET (16:22 GMT)