Cotton futures were little changed on Monday as traders remained cautious ahead of the first notice day of the December contract later in the week. We have a lot of people waiting to see what speculators are going to do on the first notice day on Wednesday," said Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee. "I think there is not a lot of excitement about getting very long or short in this market until this Wednesday."
The market awaited the weekly crop progress report from the US Department of Agriculture after market close on Monday. Cotton contracts for March settled down 0.03 cent, or 0.04 percent, at 72.29 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 71.94 and 72.7 cents a lb. Total futures market volume fell by 2,367 to 30,882 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 727 to 250,838 contracts in the previous session. Speculators raised their net long position for cotton by 1,167 lots to 78,866 lots for the week ended November 15, CFTC data showed.