Cotton hits four-month low

Cotton futures fell to a four-month low on Thursday as concerns around weaker economic data in the United States and uncertainty around China's plans to release its stockpile offset potentially bullish US export sales data and a weaker dollar. "There is some macro concerns in the economy that's driving demand down the road," said Louis Rose, independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee. Net sales of cotton totalled 251,600 bales for 2015/2016 crop year last week, up 96 percent from the previous week and 75 percent from the prior 4-week average, according to a US government report released Thursday morning.
March cotton on ICE Futures US settled down 1.71 cent, or 2.76 percent, at 60.23 cents per lb, the sharpest single-session decline since August 2015. It fell as low as 59.99 cents a lb, the lowest level since October 2. Total futures market volume rose by 13,124 to 56,385 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,369 to 200,001 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of February 3 totalled 26,212 480-lb bales, down from 26,614 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.82 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.45 percent.