Orange Juice Attempts To Break Higher

Orange Juice futures rose Wednesday during a time when supplies in Florida are short because of damage from Hurricane Irma.

Frozen concentrated orange juice for January deliver rose 1% to $1.63 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange.

"It is possible that further downward revisions in the crop estimate will be forthcoming with the USDA not able to fully assess the damage following hurricane Irma," said Judy Ganes Chase, founder of J. Ganes Consulting LLC.

Still, orange juice futures have failed to make the kinds of gains that would typically accompany the massive damage that Hurricane Irma caused to Florida's orange crop, which the USDA expects to reach its lowest levels since the 1945-1946 season at 50 million boxes.

Ms. Ganes said a large Brazilian harvest is cushioning the blow and high prices domestically are eating into demand, with prices for orange juice that isn't from concentrate approaching at $6.83 a gallon, according to Nielsen, a new high.

Weather in Brazil has improved and groves are now getting rains.

In other markets, raw sugar for March lost 0.1% to end at 15.09 cents a pound, cocoa for March was off 1.2% at $2,129 a ton, March cotton rose 0.3% to close at 68.84 cents a pound and March arabica coffee slid 0.3% to end at $1.301 a pound.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 15, 2017 17:58 ET (22:58 GMT)