Cotton futures settled higher Monday on speculative short-covering after a holiday break but analysts are wary the advance may peter out in the days ahead, brokers said.
The cotton market was shut Friday for a holiday.
The ICE Futures' May cotton contract increased 2.03 cents to end at 73.05 cents per lb, dealing from 71.62 to 73.64 cents. The new-crop December cotton futures were seen 2.92 cents higher at 82.20 cents at 3:30 pm (1930 GMT). "Cotton is trading follow-the-leader these days," said Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for First Capitol Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
She said cotton futures had taken their cue largely from strength in grains markets in Chicago. Analysts said that with the spread between the front May contract and new-crop December contract widening anew, there is some caution whether the post-holiday surge can be sustained.
"This kind of advance looks like something that may quickly discourage whatever demand we saw last week. There's really a lot of uncertainty over what kind of action we are going to see this week," one said. The cotton market should be factoring in the release next Monday of the US Agriculture Department's annual potential plantings report.
Most analysts feel US 2008 cotton sowings will fall sharply to around 9.3 million to 9.5 million acres, from 10.847 million acres in 2007 and over 15 million in 2006. "It doesn't look like we're even close to trading the USDA data at this time. It's probably going to bounce around for now and then slide into that (USDA) report," one said.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp sees support in the May cotton contract at 72.90 and 71.95 cents, with resistance at 73.85 and 74.90 cents. Volume traded in the cotton market on Thursday was at 53,837 lots. Open interest in the market was down 4,450 lots to 284,456 contracts as of March 20, exchange data showed.
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