US cotton's benchmark contract ended a shade lower on Friday as the market digested a rally from the previous session, but traders said a rebound was possible in coming days due to improving price chart signals and drier crop weather. Some traders were also banking on a stronger exports trend after Thursday's weekly data for net upland sales of all US cotton came in higher than expected.
"The exports we saw yesterday were not dramatic, but encouraging," said Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown & Co in Moultrie, Georgia. "That, and the re-emergence of hotter weather in Texas, could make next week better for cotton."
-- Oversold market and drier crop weather could aid rebound
Most-active December cotton on ICE Futures US closed down 0.08 cent, or 0.1 percent, at 77.75 cents a lb after matching the previous session's peak of 77.90 cents, the contract's highest in nearly a week. ICE's front-month cotton contract, July, which is due to expire on July 9, ended up 1.3 cents, or 1.6 percent, at 86.98 cents. "December cotton looks oversold on the charts, so there's potential for it to tack on some gains, unless fundamentals for industrial commodities go completely awry," a Texas-based cotton dealer said.
Except for last week, the December contract had posted losses every week since May 2. This week, it fell 0.3 percent. December cotton also hit a 3-1/2 month low of 76.50 cents on Wednesday. That came after a monthly government report forecast that US cotton inventories will reach a six-year high of 4.3 million 480-lb bales and world stocks will hit a record of 102.7 million bales by the end of July 2015.
But Thursday's exports data, which showed orders for 182,700 running bales of cotton versus the previous week's figure of below 167,000 bales, helped the December contract finish up 0.8 percent on the day, snapping a three-day decline. Until this week, traders had also feared that rains in Texas could nudge the cotton crop toward better yield and output, after the crop wilt caused earlier in the year by drought. For the coming week, however, temperatures in Texas's cotton growing center were forecast at highs of at least 90 degrees Farenheit, with potential for rain only at the weekend.
Comments
Comments are closed.