ICE cotton futures had their largest single-session decline in more than six months on Monday due to fund profit-taking after three consecutive days of gains and substantial strengthening of the US dollar. "There's certainly room under this, another penny or two below this on the July contract," said Gideon, Missouri, cotton buyer Barry Bean. Despite its extensive losses, he noted, cotton remained locked in the tight trading range of recent weeks.
July cotton on ICE Futures US settled down by 1.92 cents, or 2.9 percent, at 64.92 cents per pound, the front-month's largest single-session loss since November. It traded within a range of 64.87 to 66.93 cents. Total futures market volume rose by 10,762 to 25,358 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,502 to 194,422 contracts on Friday. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of May 15 totalled 120,792 480-lb bales, up from 118,095 in the previous session.
The dollar index was up 1.17 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.34 percent. Speculators cut their net long cotton position to 41,283 from 49,013 in the latest week. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 46.954.