Cotton futures fall for third straight day to near four-month low

Cotton futures fell for the third straight session on Wednesday to touch their lowest level in nearly four months, bucking an overall positive trend across commodities as investors remained concerned about a potential auction of China's massive stockpile.
"It's still long spec liquidation," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi, noting that speculators were continuing to reduce their net long position in the fibre. March cotton on ICE Futures US settled down 0.55 cent, or 0.90 percent, at 60.86 cents per lb, after falling as low as 60.7 cents a lb, the lowest level since October 5, 2015.
Total futures market volume fell by 8,550 to 25,890 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 413 to 193,281 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of January 26 totalled 57,396 480-lb bales, unchanged from 57,396 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.40 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.92 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 37.537.