ICE cotton futures settled higher after paring gains from earlier in the session on Thursday after monthly US government data showed production and inventories estimates for the 2016-17 crop year in line with market expectations. The March cotton contract on ICE Futures US rose for the second straight session and closed 0.44 percent up, the biggest one-day percentage gain in a week.
The prices of the natural fiber earlier touched a session high of 76.13 cents a lb, but gains were pared after the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report was released. Cotton rose earlier in the day as people bought on expectations of positive WASDE data, but they backed off and took profits once the report was out, Brown added.
The federal data raised its forecast for US exports by 200,000 bales to 12.7 million bales, based on strong export sales during January. The US ending stocks for 2016/17 were seen at 4.8 million bales.
The world cotton output was raised slightly to 105.42 million bales from 105.34 million bales forecast in January.
A weekly export sales report from USDA showed net upland sales totaled 208,100 running bales last week, down 36 percent from the week earlier.
The March cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 0.33 cent, or 0.44 percent, at 75.58 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 75.25 and 76.13 cents a lb.
Total futures market volume fell by 9,035 to 52,477 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 706 to 282,825 contracts in the previous session.
The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.26 percent.
China will consume 7.59 million tonnes of cotton in the 2016/17 year, up slightly from last month's forecast of 7.54 million tonnes, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday.
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