ICE cotton jumped to a two-week high on Monday as historic rains in South Carolina, which flooded streets and left nine people dead, also inundated cotton fields in the region, potentially damaging yields and crop quality. "It's a veritable disaster," said Jordan Lea, chairman and co-owner of Eastern Trading in Greenville, South Carolina, who said he had heard reports of fields where cotton was submerged.
He said even before the torrential rains that delivered 15-20 inches in the past few days, farmers "hadn't had any sun in the last two weeks." Nonetheless, Lea said he heard a certain level of optimism from farmers and ginners who thought the crop may still have enough time to recover before harvest.
While the Carolinas make up just 5 percent of overall US cotton acreage, they are important due to their proximity to the downstream US textile industry, he said. December cotton on ICE Futures US settled up by 1.73 cent on Monday, a 2.9 percent gain, to 61.87 cents per pound, after rising as high as 62.23 cents a pound, its highest level since September 18. Total futures market volume rose by 14,207 to 28,516 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 295 to 188,488 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of October 2 totalled 44,843 480-lb bales, up from 44,757 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.32 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.17 percent. Speculators cut their net long position in cotton to 11,200 contracts during the week ended September 29, down from 11,278 contracts the week before, according to US government data released Friday after market close. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract rose to 50.626.