DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


  Frozen concentrated orange juice futures rallied Wednesday on speculative
buying and possible short covering, supported by mostly higher commodity prices
and a weak U.S. dollar, brokers said.

  Most active September juice on ICE Futures U.S. in New York rose 285 points
to settle at $1.2890 a pound.

  "We saw fairly strong commodity prices for most of the day and I think that
gave us a boost, as the market is a bit jumpy with conditions in the Atlantic
beginning to heat up," a broker said.

  Even though Hurricane Bertha, currently in the open waters of the Atlantic
and posing no threat to Florida, continues to weaken, traders are nervous about
selling the market too aggressively as more storms could flare up, he said.

  Traders are continuing to position themselves ahead of any further tropical
storm development, and have aggressively decreased short bets in the market.

  Large speculators decreased shorts by 3,568 lots and also decreased longs by
6,862, thereby increasing their net long position to 10,782 in the week to July
3, from 7,472 lots the previous week, the ICE speculation and hedging report
shows. Specs are now 36.8% net long, up from 25% last week.

  Dan Vaught, analyst with Wachovia Securities in St. Louis, said spec longs
increased to 59.4% of the market, while the spec short percentage of the market
fell to a 26-week low of 22.6%.

  "On one hand, the fact that bulls didn't power last week's jump suggests they
could drive the market even higher if/when another hurricane were to emerge in
the mid-Atlantic," he said, referring to the lack of new buying in the market.

  "On the other hand, if they were not sufficiently committed to the long side
to build upon their holdings last week, we aren't at all sure what developments
might cause them to do so," Vaught said.

  Traders are indeed watching for new tropical weather developments, which
could cause prices to spike up to the $1.40-$1.45 area, said James Cordier,
founder of Optionsellers.com in Tampa. Wind shear is currently prohibiting
storms from threatening the U.S. coastline, but, as Bertha proved, ocean
temperatures are plenty warm for storm development.

  Technically, action over the last two days has formed a bullish engulfing
pattern, which suggests prices may continue to head higher, a chart watcher
using Japanese candlestick analysis said.

  FCOJ open interest Tuesday fell 411 contracts to total 28,810, ICE reported.

  Futures volume was estimated at 1,742 lots, with 194 calls and 1,188 put
options traded.

 ICE          Settle     Change     Range (At time of settlement)
 Jul         $1.2755    up   285    $1.2755-$1.2880
 Sep         $1.2890    up   285    $1.2515-$1.2960


  -By Tom Sellen, Dow Jones Newswires; 913-322-5177; tom.sellen@dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
 
  Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.