Cotton inches higher on expectations of positive export data

ICE cotton futures crawled higher on Thursday ahead of a weekly export sales report from the US government on expectations of encouraging data. Cotton contracts for March settled up 0.19 cent, or 0.28 percent, at 68.84 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.62 and 68.9 cents a lb.
"Demand (for cotton) remains strong and another good round of exports similar to last week is expected," said Jim Lambert, director of sales at FCStone Merchant Services. The market awaited weekly export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture due on Thursday.
Meanwhile, top producer India's cotton production in 2017/18 is likely to rise 11.2 percent from a year ago to 37.5 million bales because of an expanded crop area, a leading trade body said. Total futures market volume fell by 12,317 to 31,806 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 2,191 to 226,636 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Nov. 14 totalled 48,128 480-lb bales, unchanged from 48,128 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.03 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.22 percent.