ICE cotton futures jumped about 1.5 percent on Friday after touching an over one-month low earlier in the session, supported by demand for the natural fibre even as federal data indicated an increase in the planting area for the crop this year. The May cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 1.44 percent at 77.33 cents per lb, after touching a session low of 75.80 cents, a bottom since February 23.
"The market is up due to demand for old crop," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. "The export sales (figures) yesterday were really good and there's demand again today. The old crop demand keeps the market supported." The US Agriculture Department, in its annual Prospective Plantings report issued on Friday, estimated cotton planted area for 2017 at 12.2 million acres, 21 percent above last year.
"The acreage increase was more or less expected so by itself it was not sufficient to drag prices down ... when the planting report was not bearish enough, some speculators likely increased their positions, pushing prices up," said Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York.
The May cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 1.1 cent, or 1.44 percent, at 77.33 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 75.80 and 77.40 cents a lb. Total futures market volume rose by 14,975 to 41,108 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 2,166 to 277,371 contracts in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.08 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.18 percent.
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