Benchmark cotton on ICE Futures US fell on Monday in line with other commodities, as manufacturing data in China showed factory activity there fell more than initially expected last month. "We're just having a hard time climbing," said Louis Rose, independent cotton trader and consultant at Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee, noting that while prices likely do not have much further to fall, the weak data from China, the world's largest cotton consumer, could discourage new buying.
The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index hit its lowest since April 2003 on Monday, which means the market has erased almost all the gains of the decade-long commodities "super-cycle" fueled by China. ICE December cotton settled down 0.21 cent on Monday, a 0.3 percent loss, at 64 cents per pound. It traded within a range of 63.37 and 64.11 cents a pound. Total futures market volume fell by 1,925 to 18,218 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,081 to 178,803 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of July 31 totalled 112,357 480-lb bales, down from 112,358 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.14 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.61 percent. Speculators cut their net long position in cotton to 40,502 lots, down from 43,004 lots, in the week ended July 28, according to US government data released Friday after market close. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 42.854.

Copyright Reuters, 2015

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