Cotton futures remained little changed on Monday in subdued trading activity, ahead of the monthly supply-demand report from the US Department of Agriculture later this week. "We saw what looked to be speculative long liquidation late last week. Further speculator buying may very well be muted ahead of the weekly US export sales data and WASDE report," said Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee.
The USDA's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report is due on Friday, while the US exports sales data will be released on Thursday. According to CFTC data, speculators raised their net long position in cotton by 744 lots to 101,392 lots in the week to Nov. 29, marking a fresh record-high since the data became publicly available in 2006. The March cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.03 cent, or 0.04 percent, at 71.01 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 70.8 cents and 71.75 cents a lb. Total futures market volume fell by 6,669 lots to 13,975 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 2,895 contracts to 252,540 contracts in the previous session.