Orange juice futures rise as cold weather comes in

Orange juice futures rose Monday as traders anticipated that cold weather might affect Florida's citrus crop.

The actively traded March contract for frozen orange juice concentrate rose 3.85 cents, or 3 percent, to $1.436 a pound.

Florida is expecting temperatures to fall into the 30s in part of the state Tuesday, but a Florida Citrus Mutual spokesman said temperatures must be at 28 degrees or lower four hours straight for fruit to freeze badly.

In other contracts, corn rose 4.25 cents, or 1 percent, to $4.2775 a bushel. Soybeans rose 5.5 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $12.7675 a bushel and wheat was flat at $6.0575 a bushel.

February gold fell 60 cents to $1,238 an ounce.

March silver fell 10.8 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $20.103 an ounce.

Platinum for April delivery rose $2.20 or 0.2 percent, to $1,416.40 an ounce. Palladium for March delivery rose $7.30, or 1 percent, to $738.50 an ounce.

Copper for March delivery edged up half a cent to $3.3595 a pound.

Crude oil for February delivery fell 53 cents to close at $93.43 in New York.

In other energy futures trading, wholesale gasoline fell a fraction of a cent to $2.646 a gallon, heating oil was flat at $2.939 a gallon and natural gas was flat $4.31 per 1,000 cubic feet.