ICE cotton futures rose for the fifth straight session on Tuesday, extending a rally that began with last week's bullish US government crop forecast, but showed signs of losing momentum as it failed to exceed the prior session's high. "We're still holding on," said Keith Brown, a Moultrie, Georgia-based cotton trader. "If we stall much longer, you'll see producers start selling." December cotton on ICE Futures US settled up by 0.11 cent on Tuesday, a 0.2 percent gain, at 66.63 cents per pound. It traded within a range of 66.03 and 66.85 cents a pound.
Total futures market volume fell by 1,611 to 18,735 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,523 to 187,981 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of August 17 totaled 89,141 480-lb bales, down from 90,746 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.21 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.19 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract rose to 62.469.