US cotton futures rose in thin trading on Monday, with players sidelined by the vacuum in activity on Wall Street and other key financial markets due to Hurricane Sandy. The most-actively traded December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 0.19 cents, or 0.3 percent, at 72.61 cents a lb.
It was the biggest percentage gain in nearly two weeks in a market that had come under selling pressure after rallying earlier this month on concerns of a supply squeeze in the physical market. Trading volumes were paltry, standing below 9,800 lots versus the 30-day average of 21,905, preliminary data from Thomson Reuters showed. "With the stock market shut and everyone's attention on Sandy, cotton was hardly doing anything much today," said Sharon Johnson, senior cotton specialist at Knight Futures.
Sandy, a mammoth storm lashing the US East Coast, caused the first weather-related stock market closure in 27 years. It also shut down schools, businesses and government departments; halted public transport and forced hundreds of thousands in the most densely populated US region to seek higher ground. Fears of a supply squeeze earlier this month prompted those short on cotton to run for cover, pushing prices close to 80 cents a lb, their loftiest level since mid-June.
Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday showed the speculative net long at just under 24,000 lots, the market's largest net long since September 2011. The net long position rose despite December cotton losing 6 percent of its price last week.
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