ICE cotton futures gained nearly 1 percent on Wednesday, after falling in the two previous sessions, supported by mill buying. The most active ICE cotton contract for March expiry settled up 0.71 cent, or 0.87 percent, at 82.14 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 80.96 and 82.22 cents a lb.
"It has been the rather significant on call positions held by the merchants here. They bought a bunch of cotton," said Jack Scoville, vice president with Price Futures Group in Chicago. "We've been on a pretty strong uptrend. Until these guys are done buying the market here which might take another week or two, it's going to be very hard for this market to crack," Scoville said.
Cotton futures touched their highest level since March 2014 at 84.65 cents last week. Total futures market volume fell by 12,547 to 22,428 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 3,957 to 303,537 contracts in the previous session.
China's agriculture production costs are set to rise fairly quickly in 2018, pushed up by higher fertilizer and pesticide prices, an agriculture ministry official said on Wednesday.
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