Cotton futures eased on Friday, giving back a sliver of the week's gains on profit-taking and book-squaring at the month's end. The most-active December cotton contract on ICE Futures US closed down 0.21 cent, or 0.4 percent, at 59.36 cents a lb. The US dollar's recent gains against other currencies have weighed on dollar-traded commodities, as it makes them more expensive to holders of other currencies.
-- Prices see biggest weekly gain since September 2014
-- Fibre finishes January with slight loss
That and bullish expectations of another week of strong US Department of Agriculture export sales data lifted fibre prices this week. New sales of upland cotton beat expectations at a more than one-year high, and the spot contract finished the week up 3.6 percent, its strongest such rally in more than four months.
"We've got profit-taking and book-squaring at the month-end," said Jobe Moss, a broker with MCM Inc in Lubbock, Texas. "You've got to think we're seeing pent-up demand though. We finally got to a level where mills want to cover." Even so, the spot contract fell for a third straight month in January, touching a 5-1/2-year low of 57.05 cents a lb as traders piled into a bearish bet on bumper harvests in key growers.
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