Cotton futures edged up on Wednesday as concerns over dry weather in Texas persisted amid broad gains across commodities even as the market awaited weekly export sales data on Thursday. "Higher value of US currency probably has hindered upward movement, along with uncertainty regarding tomorrow's export report" said Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee.
The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 0.31 cent, or 0.42 percent, at 74.29 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 73.22 and 74.45 cents a lb. The dollar index was up 0.54 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.39 percent.
Benchmark December corn was up 1-1/4 cents at $3.35-1/4 a bushel and November soybeans were up 3 cents at $9.56 a bushel. China sold 14,200 tonnes of cotton at its ongoing auction of state reserves on Wednesday, representing 47.29 percent of the total amount made available for auction, according to an industry website.