Cotton holds steady

ICE cotton futures were mostly unchanged on Monday, as investors remained cautious and awaited for more details on the "phase one" US-China trade deal. Cotton contracts for March rose 0.02 cent, or 0.03%, at 66.82 cents per lb by 01:01 p.m. EST (1801 GMT). It traded within a range of 66.43 and 67.43 cents a lb.

"Overall, the market seems to be in kind of a holding pattern, trying to find out more details about what the new agreement means with China for cotton and that's a large part of what's going on," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Chicago-based Price Futures Group.

"Prices are at the lower end of the recent trading range over the last few days but still holding above support near about 66 cents." US President Donald Trump's top trade negotiator praised a "phase one" US-China trade deal which is expected to nearly double US exports to China over the next two years, while China remained cautious ahead of the signing of the agreement.

The deal, announced on Friday between Washington and Beijing, will reduce some US tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for increased Chinese purchases of US agricultural, manufactured and energy products by some $200 billion over the next two years.

Meanwhile, ICE cotton speculators decreased their net short position by 9,621 contracts to 12,306 in the week to December 10. Total futures market volume fell by 25,107 to 20,621 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,983 to 202,674 contracts in the previous session.