Raw sugar prices settled slightly higher on Wednesday on modest trade buying as players kept their focus on the spot contract's expiration by the end of the week, brokers said.
The New York Board of Trade's July raw sugar contract rose 0.03 cent to finish at 15.67 cents per lb, moving from 15.56 to 15.73 cents. The benchmark October contract edged up 0.01 to 16.20 cents, dealing from 16.10 to 16.27 cents.
Distant months gained from 0.05 to 0.19 cent. Mike McDougall, senior vice-president of FIMAT USA Inc, said there was some trade buying of the spread but the market was confined to a band going into on Friday's expiration of the July contract.
Open interest in July slid 9,893 lots to 21,536 lots as of June 27. Most analysts expect final open interest on Friday be close to hover between 4,000 and 7,000 lots. The origins of the sugar will be leading producer Brazil and Central America.
Market fundamentals are in rough equilibrium and analysts are monitoring developments to see how demand for sugar develops in the months ahead. Sugar edged up at the start, fell to its lows for the day on speculative liquidation and then ended the day in positive ground as trade buying buoyed values, dealers said.
"Once we get July out of the way, it will be a brand new market especially since October's expiration is a long way off," one said. Technicians feel support in the October contract was at 15.90 and 15.83 cents, with resistance at 16.50 and 17 cents.
Volume before the close stood at 39,724 lots, against the previous 51,532 contracts. Call volume touched 6,252 lots and puts hit 3,621 lots. Open interest in the No 11 raw sugar market dropped 5,778 lots to 433,368 lots as of June 27.
There were no deals in the ethanol market. US domestic sugar prices ended mostly flat. September was steady at 23 cents per lb and November was also flat at 22.45 cents. Three contracts aside, the rest were unchanged. Volume before the end of trade touched 68 lots, from the previous 83 lots.
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