ICE cotton rose over 1.5 percent on Thursday, after falling for three straight sessions, supported by fund-buying and a softer dollar. Cotton contracts for March settled up 1.22 cent, or 1.67 percent, at 74.13 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 72.91 and 74.23 cents a lb.
"It's fund-buying. They're the ones supporting the market right now ... The dollar is also helping," a New York-based trader said. "Funds are continuing to buy off of the underlying friendly fundamentals," the trader added.
The US dollar fell after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in a widely expected move, but left its rate outlook for the coming years unchanged. Meanwhile, the market awaited the weekly export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the USDA raised its US cotton production forecast for 2017/18 by 63,000 bales and exports estimates by 300,000 bales compared with its outlook last month. Total futures market volume fell by 8,133 to 23,922 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,289 to 254,060 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of December 12 totaled 47,628 480-lb bales, unchanged from 47,628 in the previous session.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.