Raw sugar prices crumbled from speculative fund selling to finish on Monday at their lowest level in over a month, and operators feel the sweetener may slip further from more fund sales in the days ahead.
The New York Board of Trade's key March raw sugar contract slid 0.28 cent or 2.4 percent to end at 11.33 cents a lb., trading from 11.31 to 11.53 cents.
It was the lowest close for the contract since settling at 11.13 cents on September 28. May slide 0.23 to 11.31 cents. The rest sank from 0.15 to 0.19 cent.
Fundamentally, analysts feel that sugar may hang around its current lofty levels given tighter stocks in 2005/06 even though production and consumption may be in rough balance that season.
James Corridor, an analyst for Liberty Trading Group, said falls in other commodity markets and profit taking after sugar's recent rally dragged the market south.
"We could do some more work down," he said. Traders said the hefty net long position by funds that control large pools of money meant the market was increasingly vulnerable to a setback.
According to the weekly Commitment of Traders' report, the funds and small speculators net long position in futures stood at 167,698 lots.
"The funds are very long the market so it may have been time for some of them to book their profits," a dealer said. Futures lost ground from the onset of business and only got modest support once the key March contract slipped to the days lows, traders said.
Technicians said they feel resistance for the March contract would be at 11.50, then all the way up to the contract peak of 11.91 cents. Support would be at 11.13 and 11 cents.
Volume traded before the close amounted to 42,210 lots, vs. the previous tally of 41,082 contracts. Call volume hit 6,029 contracts and puts stood at 6,153 lots.
Open interest in the No 11 raw sugar market rose 1,401 lots to 474,225 lots as of October 28. Ethanol futures were not traded. There were no quotes in the spot November ethanol contract.
US domestic sugar prices ended mostly lower. The market took note of news that US Sugar Corp, the biggest sugar producer in the country, said its milling and harvesting operations have resumed in Florida a week after Wilma roared through the area.