Cotton eases on firm dollar, traders await federal acreage report

ICE cotton futures edged lower on Tuesday, pressured by a firmer dollar, although price moves were limited on caution ahead of a federal planting intentions report.

Cotton contracts for May fell 0.19 cent, or 0.2pc, to 80.30 cents per lb by 12:01 P.M EDT. It traded within a range of 79.82 and 81.2 cents a lb.

"The market is kind of quiet and is trying to figure out its next move and tomorrow's acreage number will give us the next direction," Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) planting intentions report is due at 1600 GMT on Wednesday.

A Reuters poll forecasts U.S. cotton acreage at 11.905 million acres for the 2021/22 marketing year.

Market participants are expecting the figure to be around 12 million acres, Egli said.

Meanwhile, the dollar scaled a near five-month high, making cotton more expensive for buyers holding other currencies.

"This week's annual USDA Planting Intentions report is not expected to provide bullish sentiment," Louis Rose, director of research and analytics at Tennessee-based Rose Commodity Group, said in a note.

"Still, the market is now at a level where mill on-call fixations should provide significant support even as index fund rolling commences."

Total futures market volume fell by 8,060 to 13,879 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 79 to 228,679 contracts in the previous session.