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El Nino's Sugar Shortage Drives Bullish Bets to Seven-Year High

  • Raw sugar speculative bets most bullish since March 2008
  • Market expected to be in deficit after five years of surplus
Yellow sugar granules sit during analysis in the laboratory at the Zainsk sugar plant, operated by ZAO Agrosila Group, in Zainsk, Russia, on Friday, Sept. 4. 2015. Raw-sugar futures turned a bit sweeter for bulls, climbing the most in almost four years on concerns that adverse weather may hurt crops in Brazil and India, the top producing countries.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

El Nino is making a mess of the world’s sugar production, driving up prices as investors amass the biggest bullish position in seven years.

Speculators boosted their the net-long position in raw sugar to the highest since March 2008, according to data for last week released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that excludes index funds. El Nino has led to excessive rain in Brazil and dryness is hurting crops in India and Thailand.