ICE cotton rose 1 percent on Tuesday supported by technical buying and slower than expected harvest progress in the United States. Cotton contracts for March settled up 0.72 cent, or 1.01 percent, at 72.14 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 71.02, its lowest in almost a week, and 72.29 cents a lb.
"The upward movement seems largely to be technical," Louis Rose, co-founder and director of research and analytics at Rose Commodity said, adding "there's also the slower than expected US harvest progress." On Monday, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) weekly crop progress report showed 79 percent of the cotton crop was harvested in the United States by the week ended Nov. 26, up from 74 percent in the previous week. Traders were however expecting about 90 percent of the crop to be harvested.
"Technically, the market could rival the 75 cent level, basis March, but that seems unlikely given the amount of physical cotton that remains to be hedged," Rose said. Total futures market volume fell by 6,391 to 26,073 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,168 to 234,499 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Nov. 27 totalled 47,951 480-lb bales, unchanged from 47,951 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.42 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.22 percent.