Benchmark cotton futures on ICE fell for the third straight session on Tuesday, hitting their lowest levels in nearly three months, as speculators liquidated long positions and refrained from buying as the downward trend of recent weeks continued.
"We haven't managed to get anything going to the upside," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton Ltd, noting that speculators were frustrated after purchasing a significant amount of contracts in recent weeks with "nothing to show for it." December cotton on ICE Futures US settled down by 0.43 cent on Tuesday, a 0.7 percent loss, to 64.24 cents per pound, after falling as low as 64.11 cents a lb, its lowest since April 23.
Total futures market volume fell by 4,862 to 12,649 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 297 to 176,785 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of July 20 totalled 133,706 480-lb bales, down from 135,542 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.74 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.08 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 50.439.