Two short months ago, the sugar market was taking the commodity world by storm with prices soaring to their highest level in three decades. And, according to the captains of the mainstream ship, the bullish waters were smooth sailing as far as the eye could see.
On this, these news items from late January 2010 set the record straight:
- "Sugar Rises To 29-Year Peak, Upside Seen. Dealers predict further rises in the coming weeks due to hefty, pent-up demand from many importing countries." (Reuters)
- "Sugar prices have powered higher due to expectations of a large global deficit this season... There's still quite a bit of tightness in supplies." (AP)
- "Sugar futures scaled a 29-year peak. It sill looks bullish on a fundamental basis. There's no change in the trend so far." (Reuters)
- "Sugar's caught in a perfect storm and the speculative money should keep pouring in."(Bloomberg)
YET -- in a matter of days, said "perfect storm" died away and sugar prices turned down in a powerful, unrelenting decline to the three-month lows we see now.
Now, while the usual sources pulled a serious "Titanic" on sugar's selloff -- i.e. didn't see it coming until it was too late -- EWI's chief commodity analyst and long-time Futures Junctures Service editor Jeffrey Kennedy had the life rafts ready well ahead of schedule.
To wit: In the January 29 Daily Futures Junctures "Weekly Wrap-up," Jeffrey presented the following close-up of Sugar that showed prices gearing up for a dramatic decline in the days ahead.
And, that's exactly what happened.
Which begs the question: Has the sugar bull left for good? Well, in the March 1 Daily Futures Junctures, Jeffrey Kennedyrevisits the sugar market to reveal whether the months-long selloff has come to an end.