Cotton marks biggest one-day percentage loss in nearly seven months

ICE cotton futures shed 2.5 percent on Monday in the biggest one-day percentage decline in nearly seven months, as markets reassessed the implications of last week's federal crop plantations report amid a stronger dollar. The May cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled at 75.47 cents per lb, down 2.41 percent, posting the biggest daily percentage loss since September 2016.
The market was mostly responding to the bearish crop report that came out Friday afternoon, while a firmer dollar added to the pressure, said David Ruppenicker, chief executive officer at Southern Cotton Growers, Inc. The US Agriculture Department, in its annual Prospective Plantings report issued on Friday, estimated cotton planted area for 2017 at 12.2 million acres, 21 percent above last year.
Some funds may have been re-evaluating information from the report, according to Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York. May cotton futures settled up 1.5 percent after the report on Friday. The May cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 1.86 cent, or 2.41 percent, at 75.47 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 75.44 and 78.07 cents a lb. Total futures market volume rose by 17,135 to 58,386 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,531 to 279,902 contracts in the previous session.
The dollar index was up 0.19 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.73 percent. Speculators trimmed their net long position in cotton by 293 contracts to 108,756 in the week to March 28, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed on Friday.