NYBOT cotton futures finished at a one-month low Monday on speculative and options-related sales as bearish fundamentals and limited storm damage to US cotton farms depressed market values, dealers said.
Key December cotton fell 1.02 cents to close at 47.41 cents a lb, ranging from 46.30 to 48 cents. It was the cheapest finish for the contract since settling at 47.32 cents on August 17.
March slumped 0.74 cent to 49.12 cents and, except for one contract, the rest declined 0.13 to 1.12 cents.
Frank Weathersby of brokers Affinity Trading said storms, which pounded cotton farms in Georgia, the second biggest growing area in the country, and Alabama were not enough to offset bearish market fundamentals.
Futures had marched higher on fears that Georgia's 2.0 million (480-lb) bale crop may suffer from yield and quality shortcomings due to the storm.
But that soon petered out since the US cotton crop is forecast to hit a record at 20.9 million bales and crops elsewhere are just as large.
"It (the market) has lost its support," said Weathersby, whose offices in Fort Walton Beach, Florida are temporarily shut and he is now in a temporary office in Destin, Florida.
All-around sales pushed cotton prices down to their lows from where they finally found trade support and covering by small speculators, brokers said.
"The fact is that the US (cotton) crop is big," said the cotton letter of Jim Nunn of Nunn Cotton Co.
The cotton market cannot rely on talk that the cotton crop in China, the world's biggest producer and consumer of the fibre, may be smaller than the 29.5 million bales estimated by the US Department of Agriculture, Nunn added.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp said support in December delivery lies at 47.10 and 46.50 cents, with resistance at 47.75 and 48.30 cents.
Floor dealers pegged estimated final volume at 15,500 lots, up from Friday's count of 7,689 lots. Open interest rose 248 lots to 69,286 lots as of September 17.