A closer look
If you've ever seen the movie Trading Places, you might think it's a joke, but the frozen concentrated orange juice market is terrifyingly real. Because nearly the entire commercial American citrus supply is heavily concentrated in a few specific regions of Florida, the entire commodity market is hyper-sensitive to frost. Financial traders will literally sit in multi-million-dollar Manhattan offices aggressively watching meteorological reports, buying and selling futures contracts based on the slight chance of a cold snap hitting a specific zip code in Orlando. They gamble millions on whether a single orange tree gets too chilly.
