Cotton futures snapped a three day losing streak and rose on Thursday as investors covered their short positions ahead of a monthly supply-demand outlook from the US government and on expectations of excessive rains in Texas. "We have short covering before the USDA's (US Department of Agriculture's) report on Friday and also the fact that we could actually be seeing flooding in Texas," said Michael McDougall, director of commodities for Societe Generale in New York.
The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 0.42 cent, or 0.59 percent, at 71.86 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 71.25 and 72.44 cents a lb. Total futures market volume fell by 12,501 to 18,591 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 1,225 to 243,729 contracts in the previous session. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.36 percent.