Cotton futures fell over 2 percent on Thursday to mark their biggest one-day loss in over nine months after the US government raised its annual planting figures for the natural fibre. US farmers planted 10.02 million acres of cotton for 2016, above the trade estimates, the US Department of Agriculture said on Thursday. On average, they had expected acreage to fall from the government's March forecast of 9.56 million.
"The plantings report kind of took the bullish momentum out of the market and then the market kind of sold off," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton. The market also took stock of the US export sales report, which showed sales of upland cotton totalled 58,700 running bales for the week ended June 23, down 66 percent from the previous week.
The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 1.68 cent, or 2.55 percent, at 64.17 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 64.15 and 66.42 cents a lb. The dollar index was up 0.28 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.06 percent.