Raw sugar futures lost some ground early on Wednesday, after coming within a hair of the 15-cent level, as speculators and funds sold at the open, taking the wind out of overnight momentum, brokers said.
"Some fund and spec selling came out on the pre-opening at 8 am. Once we opened up down in the pit here, the May was offered at 14.50. Again, it appeared to be spec/fund-like selling, which kind of put a damper on things after we were up near 15.00 cents in the overnight," said one floor dealer. The ICE Futures electronic May sugar contract was down 0.11 cent to 14.43 cents per lb at 9:23 am EST (1423 GMT), moving between 14.31 and a new life-of-contract peak of 14.99.
Trading volume Wednesday in the electronic May sugar contract reached 33,387 lots by 9:24 am. Open-outcry volumes on Tuesday hit 14,603 lots, while screen trade totalled 132,230 lots, the exchange said.