ICE cotton futures hit a six-week high but settled little-changed on Friday as concerns about the upcoming US crop prevented merchant selling but a cross-commodities rout limited speculative buying. "Since the crop report, people are much more cautious," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus cotton, referring to last week's bullish US Department of Agriculture (USDA) supply and demand report.
"The trade would be the logical seller, but they have limited ability to go much more short right now." Industry analysts Cotlook provided affirmation for the USDA's forecast, slashing their forecast for US production in a report released Thursday after market close.
December cotton on ICE Futures US settled down by 0.02 cent on Friday at 66.91 cents per pound, after trading as high as 67.00 cents a lb, its highest level since July 10. The second-month closed the week up 0.96 cent, or 1.5 percent. That marked the first time cotton has settled higher two weeks in a row since the week ended May 1.
Total futures market volume fell by 901 to 15,649 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 3,601 to 196,531 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of August 20 totalled 83,036 480-lb bales, down from 85,680 bales in the previous session. The dollar index was down 1.01 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.68 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 63.471.
Comments
Comments are closed.