ICE cotton futures inched up on Monday supported by gains in other commodities markets, ahead of crop progress data from the US government due later in the day and monthly world agricultural demand and supply estimates data later in the week. Cotton contracts for December settled up 0.13 cent, or 0.2 percent, at 68.85 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.23 and 69.12 cents a lb.
"Cotton is moving up because all the commodities are going up," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. "Cotton is getting some spillover buying." The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.69 percent, its highest level since Jan. 23. Meanwhile, the market awaited crop progress data from the US Department of Agriculture due later in the day.
On Friday, speculators raised a bullish stance in cotton by 1,120 contracts to a four-week high of 50,042 contracts, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed. Total futures market volume rose by 1,180 to 32,580 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 260 to 235,300 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Nov. 3 totalled 32,922 480-lb bales, up from 27,995 in the previous session.