Cotton futures settled marginally higher Wednesday on buying by small speculators as the market awaited the release of a government report tomorrow to provide leads on the next move, brokers said. The New York Board of Trade's July contract rose 0.29 cent to end at 50.37 cents a lb, dealing from 49.87 to 50.45 cents. New-crop December gained 0.20 to 53.20 cents. The rest increased between 0.20 and 0.33 cent. "There's no inspiration whatsoever," said Keith Brown, president of commodity firm Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia. "We're just consolidating around the 50 cents (basis July) level."
Fundamentally, most players are keeping tabs on the development of the cotton crop in the US and in other places like China. For today, small speculators were content to trade the market in a band to stay within a few points of unchanged, dealers said. "The locals were just jobbing it back and forth," one said. "You couldn't really hang anything on the activity today."
Looking toward the US Department of Agriculture's weekly export sales report, cotton brokers said they expect US cotton sales to reach from 325,000 to 380,000 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each), versus 364,400 RBs in last week's data.
The brokers said US cotton shipments of previously booked orders will likely amount to 300,000 to 400,000 RBs, against the 265,400 RBs in last week's USDA report. "We're just waiting on the exports (figure) tomorrow," Brown said.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp sees support in the July contract at 49.80 and 49.10 cents, with resistance at 50.50 and 51.10 cents.
Floor dealers said estimated final trading volume hit 6,500 lots, down from the prior count of 10,608 lots. Open interest fell 168 contracts to 95,876 lots as of May 24.