Cotton futures finished lower Tuesday on investor profit-taking although many players were out for the year-end holidays and brokers said dealings should stay thin this week and next. The cotton market will close early on Thursday, December 24, and be shut for Christmas, Dec, 25, which falls on Friday. The cotton market will also shut next Friday, January 1, for New year's Day.
The benchmark March cotton contract settled down 1.16 cents at 73.80 cents per lb after dealing between 73.52 and 75.25 cents. Last Wednesday, the contract closed at 76.25 cents in the highest finish for cotton based on the spot daily charts since the end of February 2008. Volume traded in the March contract hit 13,322 lots at 2:34 pm EST (1934 GMT).
"They got a little top-heavy," Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for First Capitol Group in Atlanta, Georgia, said of the long positions taken by many investors in cotton. She said once the March contract broke below the 10- and 20-day technical moving averages at 75.01 and 74.67 cents, automatic sell orders kicked in.
But there is good buying for the March cotton contract all the way down to the next level of support around 72.50 cents. Johnson believes that mill fixation buying was also apparent at the market's lows and any push to lower territory would likely entice more consumer buying. Analysts said they will look forward to the weekly export sales report by the US Agriculture Department for further leads on the market's next move.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp put support for March delivery at 72.85 and 71.05 cents, with resistance at 74.05 and 75.50 cents. Total volume traded Monday hit 7,420 lots, off from the previous 10,047 lots, according to data from ICE Futures US Open interest stood at 188,285 lots as of December 21, up from the prior count of 188,026 contracts, the exchange said.