ICE cotton futures settled lower on Wednesday as investors booked profits, while developments in trade negotiations between the United States and China remained in focus. Cotton contracts for May settled down 0.47 cent, or 0.6 percent, at 77.62 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 77.32 and 78.35 cents a lb.
"The cotton market was overbought, supply and demand report which came out on Tuesday showed ending stocks were a bit higher," said David Mullins, regional field director at Choice Cotton Company, adding there was profit-taking.
Cotton prices fell on Tuesday after US Department of Agriculture (USDA) raised its estimates for ending stocks for the 2018/19 US and world cotton crops, while forecasting lower demand.
The USDA will release its weekly export sales report on Thursday.
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that US-China trade talks continue to make progress and the two sides have basically settled on a mechanism to enforce any agreement reached.
"Market participants are going to be watching the trade agreement between the United States and China in the near term. Until then we just have to wait and see," Mullins added.
Total futures market volume fell by 15,490 to 48,147 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 4,651 to 221,538 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of April 9 totalled 48,280 480-lb bales, up from 41,392 in the previous session.
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