Cotton futures fall in commodities rout as China uncertainty lingers

Cotton futures had their sharpest single-session decline in six weeks on Monday, dragged down by declines in crude oil and across the commodities complex, as uncertainty remained around China's potential plans to offload its massive cotton stockpile.
"There's no real supportive news out there," said Ron Lawson, a partner at commodity investment firm Logic Advisors in Sonoma, California. "The wind's blowing south - (cotton) is going to head that way." March cotton on ICE Futures US settled down 0.85 cent, or 1.36 percent, at 61.60 cents per lb, marking the sharpest day of losses since December 10. It traded within a range of 61.41 and 62.49 cents a lb. Total futures market volume rose by 9,601 to 27,253 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,517 to 191,991 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of January 25 totalled 58,627 480-lb bales, down from 61,303 in the previous session.
The dollar index was down 0.31 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 2.04 percent. Speculators raised their net long position to 22,806 contracts, from 16,479 in the latest week. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 42.337.