ICE cotton futures edged higher on Tuesday to settle up for the second straight session, supported by buying from the mills. The most active ICE cotton contract for March expiry settled up 0.21 cent, or 0.27 percent, at 78.35 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 78.03 and 78.70 cents a lb.
"We have enough buying around for the market to be stable ... I would say fixation buying. The big fear I have is that everybody waits 'til the last moment to fix. Then the market will really spike," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton. "A lot of mill fixations need to be done. Mills engaged in a lot of bets on New York on the purchases and now they have to pay the price to fix the price."
Total futures market volume fell by 6,063 to 25,342 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 518 to 286,837 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Jan. 8 totalled 47,665 480-lb bales, unchanged from the previous session.