Cotton futures settled easier Wednesday on modest speculative sales and most of the trade were waiting for leads to give the market direction on its next move, brokers said.
The New York Board of Trade's December cotton contract eased 0.44 cent to conclude at 52.80 cents per lb, moving from 52.61 to 53.10 cents. It was an inside day since the range was within Tuesday's 52.60 to 53.69 cents band. March shed 0.46 to 56.52 cents.
Back months fell 0.15 to 0.48 cent. Keith Brown, president of commodity firm Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia, said fibre contracts have shown a tendency not to follow-through on a move and that was what happened on Wednesday. "Unless there were some dynamic in the sales (report), I think we're condemned to trade sideways to down," he said.
The analyst was alluding to the weekly US Agriculture Department's weekly export sales report, which is being released tomorrow at 8:30 am EDT (1230 GMT).
Cotton brokers said they expect sales to pick up after the recent falls in prices and should range from 150,000 to 250,000 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each) from sales in last week's report of 147,900 RBs. They said US cotton shipments of previously booked orders could be between 50,000 and 100,000 RBs, against last week's figure of 76,600 RBs.
Brown and other analysts said they were also looking at the cotton harvest in the United States, which is already getting under way in some areas of the country.
"The early maturity and therefore faster harvest progress is generally an indicator of a crop under stress," said a report by Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for First Capitol Group in Atlanta. Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp sees resistance in the December contract at 53.50 and 54 cents, with support at 52.35 cents.
Floor sources said final trading volume came to 8,000 lots, from the previous 15,516 lots. Open interest in the cotton market rose 156 lots to 175,873 lots as of September 12.
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