Cotton futures fell for the second straight session on Friday, hitting a 3-1/2-week low on a stronger dollar and selling from producers who held onto their crop until the new year for tax purposes. The most-active March cotton contract on ICE Futures US fell 0.69 cent, or 1.2 percent, to settle at 59.58 cents a lb after falling to 59.47 cents a lb earlier in the session, its lowest level since December 10.
-- Farmers who carried crop into new year begin selling Traders said gains in the US dollar, which rose 0.9 percent against a basket of currencies to its highest level in nearly nine years on Friday, prompted investor selling. "They're long the dollar and now they're selling some of these row crop commodities" including cotton, said Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia.
A stronger dollar weighs on dollar-traded commodities like cotton by making them more expensive to holders of other currencies. Brown added that a large portion of Friday's losses was driven by selling from producers who carried cotton into 2015 so revenue from sales would not be included in their 2014 tax total. Fiber found support in the mid-59 cent range, a level that has attracted mill buying in recent weeks.
Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant at Risk Analytics in Tennessee, said this was a signal that the market, which has been pressured by weak demand after top-consumer China overhauled its stockpiling program, does not have much farther to fall. "We're going to hold this area," Rose said. "Generally, January sees cash come into the market on the long side." Friday's fall marked the end of a 3.3 percent weekly loss for cotton, its steepest since the week ended November 14.
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