NEW YORK: ICE cotton futures fell more than 2% on Wednesday, tracking weakness in broader financial markets and as analysts said that the US fibre was facing headwinds from cheaper Indian and African exports.

Cotton contracts for May fell 2.45 cent, or 2.7% to 88.54 cents per lb, by 1:22 p.m. ET (1822 GMT). It traded within a range of 88.44 and 91.13 cents a lb.

The contract rallied to over 2-1/2-year highs last week but has slipped as much as 7.5% from that peak.

“The market has room to move a bit lower because the rally (has) ran into major resistance on the demand side,” said Ed Jernigan, chief executive of Jernigan Global, a cotton textile supply chain manager.

Market participants look forward to a weekly export sales report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) due on Thursday.

The cotton market lacks a positive trigger to push it higher and that is pushing some traders out of the market, said Sid Love, commodity trading adviser at Kansas-based Sid Love Consulting.

A dip in wall Street’s major stock averages and similar moves across grain markets like soybean, corn and wheat further pressured the natural fiber. But, “There is a host of bullish factors working towards cotton and a lot of it has to do with South American weather the same thing that keeps on buoying the grains, should keep us afloat too,” said Louis Barbera, partner and analyst at VLM Commodities Ltd.—Reuters