Cotton futures rose for the second straight session on Tuesday, climbing over 1.5 percent with buying in China triggered by concerns about crop damage due to bad weather there. "The market found strength from early morning Chinese buying," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. Speculators cut their net long position for cotton by 1,235 lots to 75,699 lots for the week ended November 8, reducing it for the third straight week, CFTC data showed.
Besides the China production worry, there are also concerns about US harvesting delays, according to Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York. The US Department of Agriculture's weekly crop progress report released on Monday after market close showed that 61 percent of cotton crops were harvested in the United States, up from 56 percent a week ago, but down from a five-year harvest average of 69 percent.
The March cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 1.17 cent, or 1.69 percent, at 70.48 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 69.41 and 70.52 cents a lb. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.57 percent. China cotton futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange were up 0.88 percent to 15,550 yuan per tonne.
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