ICE cotton futures hit their highest levels in 11 months after the release of US export sales figures on Thursday but ended the day lower as speculator buying cooled after sharp gains in recent days, and investors took profits ahead of the long weekend. "They're not going to buy every day like the way they've been buying," Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton Ltd, said of speculators, noting that current price levels were attractive for commercial participants to sell.
The futures and options markets will be closed on Friday, July 3, for the US Independence Day holiday weekend. December cotton on ICE Futures US settled down 0.15 cent on Thursday, a 0.2 percent loss, to 67.39 cents per pound. It traded as high as 68.11 cents a lb, its highest level since July 24, 2014.
US net cotton export sales for the 2014/15 crop year reached 80,500 bales last week, up 22 percent from the prior four-week average, according to US government data. Shipments reached 230,400 bales, down 9 percent from the prior four-week average. Total futures market volume fell 3,007 to 23,916 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,352 to 182,435 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of July 1 totalled 167,195 480-lb bales, down from 167,565 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.19 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.22 percent.
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