ICE cotton futures fell for a fifth straight session on Friday, hitting their lowest levels in more than seven months on concerns about weak demand ahead of a US government supply and demand report expected next week. "It's been as much about demand as anything," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group in Chicago, citing the previous session's weekly export sales report, which showed net cancellations for cotton from the 2014/15 crop and "dismal" sales for 2015/16 cotton.
He added that some traders were likely positioning on Friday ahead of the US Department of Agriculture's monthly supply and demand report, expected next Wednesday. December cotton on ICE Futures US settled down by 0.47 cent on Friday, a 0.8 percent loss, at 61.79 cents per pound for its fifth straight session of losses. It fell as low as 61.62 cents a lb, the lowest level since January 23.
The December contract closed the week down 0.4 percent for its sixth consecutive weekly loss, and its sharpest weekly loss since September 2014. Total futures market volume fell by 17,349 to 22,503 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,162 to 183,141 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of August 6 totaled 102,490 480-lb bales, down from 105,074 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.27 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.11 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 31.371.