Cotton slips

ICE cotton futures eased on Wednesday on the back of weaker equities as dismal US economic data exacerbated fears of the coronavirus-driven economic toll.

The cotton contract for July fell 0.50 cent, or 0.94%, to 52.68 cents per lb by 1:45 p.m. EDT (1745 GMT). It traded within a range of 52.4 and 53.9 cents a lb.

"There is some negativity in the broader stock markets and cotton is just following along," said Bailey Thomen, cotton risk management associate with INTL FCStone.

Global stock markets were knocked on Wednesday by data showing US economy in a deep downturn and reports of persistent crude oil oversupply and collapsing demand.

US retail sales suffered a record drop in March and output at factories declined by the most since 1946, buttressing analysts' views that the economy contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace in decades as extraordinary measures to control the novel coronavirus outbreak shut down the country.

The cotton market has already priced in some of the bad news with the recent dropoffs and it will take some external forces, such as an improvement or worsening coronavirus outlook, to push it higher or lower, Thomen added.

Cotton futures declined more than 25% in the first quarter, the biggest since 2011, as several countries were under lockdown to curb the COVID-19 outbreak, bringing economic activities to a halt.

Investors now eye the release of the US Department of Agriculture's weekly export sales data due on Thursday.

Total futures market volume fell by 4,952 to 33,470 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,083 to 185,745 contracts in the previous session.-Reuters

New York cotton

NEW YORK: The following were the fluctuations observed during the day:

=================================================================================
                                  Current Session                       Prior Day
          Open     High    Low    Last    Time      Set     Chg     Vol       Set
=================================================================================
May'20    52.64   53.19   51.91   52.50   12:31      -     -0.01   11641    52.51
                                          Apr 15
Jul'20    53.01   53.90   52.40   52.56   12:34      -     -0.62   16841    53.18
                                          Apr 15
Oct'20    55.09   55.09   54.82   55.08   17:00    55.08    0.06       7    55.02
                                          Apr 15
=================================================================================