ICE cotton futures rebounded on Tuesday from a six-week low hit the prior session as a weekly US government report showed slow harvest progress, particularly in No 2 growing state Georgia, as rains prevented farmers from undertaking harvest activities.
"We had rain for two weeks, and some of these fields take a while to dry out," said Keith Brown, a Moultrie, Georgia-based cotton broker. "That's what's keeping the market buoyed up here like this."
The US Department of Agriculture's crop progress report, released Monday after market close, showed that 64 percent of Georgia's crop was harvested as of Sunday, down from 87 percent at the same point the prior year and 80 percent on average during the past five years.
Overall, 70 percent of the US crop had been harvested, down from 76 percent last year and 82 percent on average the past 5 years. March cotton on ICE Futures US settled up 0.34 cent, or 0.55 percent, at 61.94 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 61.61 and 62.29 cents a lb.
Total futures market volume fell by 20,811 to 12,891 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 1,521 to 171,750 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of November 23 totalled 59,664 480-lb bales, up from 58,949 in the previous session.
The dollar index was down 0.26 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.00 percent. Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract rose to 45.853.