ICE cotton rose over 1 percent to hit an over 2-1/2-month high on Wednesday fuelled by technical buying, a day ahead of export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Cotton contracts for March settled up 1.29 cents, or 1.79 percent, at 73.43 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 71.75 and 73.46 cents a lb, its highest level since Sept. 11.
"Prices are up on speculator buying," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton, adding, "The speculators are still buying, the market is a bit overbought from a technical perspective, so it may have to consolidate." "The 75-cent level is not far away. We could definitely reach that. It depends on how much more (speculators) want to buy."
Meanwhile, the market awaited weekly export sales data from the USDA due on Thursday. Total futures market volume rose by 7,522 to 33,793 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,874 to 237,373 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Nov. 28 totalled 47,951 480-lb bales, unchanged from 47,951 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.10 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.16 percent.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.