Just curious, why guess? Why not wait?
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Sugar futures
- Thread starter SoCalOptionsWriter
- Start date
How's the SB seasonality chart look?
Back in my idealist years I lived in Eritrea, in the Horn if Africa, not long after they had signed a peace deal with Ethiopia. I somehow started getting involved in sugar trading before a friend long time trader warned me to stay away from it due to the many shenanigans in the trade.
While I never was able to get a deal through, I got to learn a lot about the product. For example, the Middle East and Horn of Africa only consume cane sugar and wouldn't be caught dead with beet sugar. Furthermore, grain size and brightness determine quality in that part of the world which consumes enormous quantities of sugar for their constant tea times. Their preference is South American sugar, but when I lived in the region, Brazil and other producers had had floods or some other calamity and little sugar to sell. That's when I learned that a contract for a ship load meant diddly squat until it was unloaded in your port, on your trucks.... Anyone with a better offer in transit could make that ship go anywhere and that ship could end up sailing much longer than expected!
Fun times!
While I never was able to get a deal through, I got to learn a lot about the product. For example, the Middle East and Horn of Africa only consume cane sugar and wouldn't be caught dead with beet sugar. Furthermore, grain size and brightness determine quality in that part of the world which consumes enormous quantities of sugar for their constant tea times. Their preference is South American sugar, but when I lived in the region, Brazil and other producers had had floods or some other calamity and little sugar to sell. That's when I learned that a contract for a ship load meant diddly squat until it was unloaded in your port, on your trucks.... Anyone with a better offer in transit could make that ship go anywhere and that ship could end up sailing much longer than expected!
Fun times!
Good points about the sources of "sugar".
I didn't know about those markets.
Here, in the U.S. consumers do not have any prejudice about the sources of sugar.
Sugar beets or sugar cane. All the same as it is the delivered commodity.
So sugar is fungible, domestically.
Some sugar destined for the US market is imported in raw paste form and scooped up off ships in the Bay Area before being trucked to processing plants to become the product we're all familiar with.
and sugar comes from
- sugar cane
- beetroot
- agave
- corn (high fructose corn syrup)
- grain (rice/wheat/oat/barley ---> fructose, glucose )
- palm
- fruits
....
No sugar
---> No inflammation problem
---> No insulin resistance
---> No type 2 diabetics
---> Less arthritis/dementia/thyroid.... problem
---> healthy teeth, healthy gum
and no beer!!!!
OK. Time for me to reduce my sugar intake.
If the fundamental reason sugar is rising because of emerging markets getting wealthier then rice should also be rising since in North Africa, Middle East & Pakistan & India they all use a lot of both daily.
Most of my Mom's family (north Indian) would drink 4-5 cups of chai by 8 AM in the morning. Chai has a lot of brown sugar & milk usually half milk & half tea. Indians love to use clumped brown sugar called gurd (unrefined cane sugar) which also popular in Mexico.
Most of my Mom's family (north Indian) would drink 4-5 cups of chai by 8 AM in the morning. Chai has a lot of brown sugar & milk usually half milk & half tea. Indians love to use clumped brown sugar called gurd (unrefined cane sugar) which also popular in Mexico.
Gurd is probably slightly healthier than refined sugar.
Processed vegetable oil is probably more toxic than refined sugar.
Indians use ghee which is actually healthier than most veg oil.