Cotton prices inched up on Thursday as investors covered short positions as rally in global equities and grains market improved market sentiment, while US-China trade war worries limited gains. The most-active cotton contract on ICE Futures US July settled up 0.45 cent, or 0.7 %, at 66.80 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 66.33 and 67.17 cents a lb.
The front-month contract posted its biggest daily percentage decline in nearly a year on Monday, which pushed it into deep oversold territory with a relative strength index (RSI) of about 6.4, below the oversold level of 30. "Stronger stock markets and the fact that corn, beans and wheat are up lent support to cotton," Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia said adding that cotton market is extremely oversold and investors covered shorts.
World stock markets were buoyed by deal-making news and solid earnings from Dow components Cisco and Walmart on Thursday. US corn futures rose for a fourth straight session as dismal weather forecasts signalled further planting delays in the Midwest. Chicago wheat futures hit a one-month high and soybeans followed the firm trend.
Analysts said that the US Department of Agriculture's export sales report were good and lent further support to prices. "The export sales numbers were good when you look at the actual mathematics of it. If you take last week export sales numbers and add both the crop years together they are below today's numbers," Brown added.
Meanwhile, Trump administration's decision to sanction and potentially cripple Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd garnered a sharp rebuke on Thursday from Beijing, which warned that the move could damage trade talks. "Markets remain concerned about the US-China trade dispute, which is why we are still in the mid-60," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton.
Total futures market volume fell by 9,498 to 22,739 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,129 to 215,831 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of May 15 totalled 81,946 480-lb bales, down from 84,854 in the previous session.
Comments
Comments are closed.