ICE cotton futures held nearly flat on Tuesday as market participants remained cautious ahead of a federal acreage report due later this week. The market is likely to stay quiet until the crop plantation report is out, according to Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. The US Department of Agriculture will release its prospective crop plantings report on Friday. "I think the acreage is going to be quite big and even though I understand that exports are fabulous I'm bearish," said John Bondurant, a trader in Memphis, Tennessee.
The May cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.06 cent, or 0.08 percent, at 76.88 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 76.70 and 77.51 cents a lb. Total futures market volume rose by 2,474 to 26,829 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 907 to 281,927 contracts in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.53 percent.