Cotton gains on weaker dollar, marks best day in two weeks

Cotton prices climbed 2% on Monday to register their best one-day gain in two weeks, supported by an easing dollar, while investors awaited crop progress data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) due later in the day.

* The July cotton contract, settled up 1.34 cents, or 2%, at 69.42 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 66.9 and 69.54 cents a lb.

* Prices marked their biggest one-day percentage gain since May 20.

* The market is trying to rally with the dollar selling off and cotton still up in the air as far as planting is concerned, said Jon Marcus, president of the Lakefront Futures and Options brokerage in Chicago.

* The dollar index was down 0.5%. A weaker greenback makes commodities priced in dollars, such as cotton, less expensive for holders of other currencies.

* Meanwhile, traders were looking ahead to the USDA's weekly crop progress report, issued after the market close on Monday, to get an update on the planting conditions of the natural fiber.

* "Uptick in prices may be observed once we get more confirmation that the US and Indian crop this year won't be stellar in quality, which should start to add upward pressure on premiums of high quality stock," Howie Lee, an economist at OCBC Bank, said in a note.

* In India, dry weather conditions due to delayed monsoon rains have hit states of Maharashtra Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. The drought has ravaged crops, killed livestock, emptied reservoirs and hit city dwellers and supplies to some industries.

* Total futures market volume rose by 27,812 to 52,719 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 93 to 216,573 contracts in the previous session.

* Certificated cotton stocks <CERT-COT-STX> deliverable as of May 31 totaled 84,139 480-lb bales, down from 84,997 in the previous session.

* China's cotton futures plunged 4% on Monday to their lowest level in nearly a decade amid growing worries about a protracted trade war with the United States, the top buyer of Chinese textile products.