Cotton futures settled firmer on Thursday on buying by small investors in a range-bound market and fibre contracts are seen drifting into the weekend given a lack of leads at this time, brokers said. Key March cotton futures rose 0.39 cent to finish at 91.30 cents per lb, trading from 90.83 to 92.77 cents. It was an inside day since the range was within Wednesday's 90.70 to 93.67 cents band.
The market has staged a modest rebound since hitting a session low of 88.50 cents on Tuesday in the lowest intra-day level for the second position contract since the start of September 2010, Thomson Reuters data showed. Total volume traded Thursday amounted to more than 12,500 lots, almost 50 percent under the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data showed.
"We're just kind of sitting here," said Mike Stevens, an independent cotton analyst in Mandeville, Louisiana. The market barely reacted to the US Agriculture Department's weekly export sales report. USDA said net upland cotton sales hit 85,000 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each), of which China accounted for 65,000 RBs.
In the preceding three weeks, the USDA's weekly export sales data showed China has bought over 2.3 million running bales (RBs 500-lbs each) as it replenished state stocks which have been run down to keep domestic prices stable. Open interest, usually taken as an indicator of investor exposure in the market, stood at 137,741 lots as of Wednesday, off from the prior session's tally of 138,214 lots, exchange data showed. Total volume traded Wednesday came to 16,615 lots, versus the previous tally of 19,103 lots, ICE futures US data said.