Cotton futures fell from over two-month highs on Thursday, halting five days of gains, on a weak US export sales report. Sales of upland cotton totalled 84,600 running bales for the week ended April 7, down 60 percent from the previous week, government data showed. The market was expecting export sales of over 100,000 bales, but the numbers were "very poor," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi.
The July cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.44 cent, or 0.72 percent, the biggest loss in over two weeks, at 60.85 cents per lb, after hitting as low as 60.05 cents. Total futures market volume fell by 13,404 to 50,957 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 3,138 to 208,746 contracts in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.20 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.50 percent.