Benchmark cotton futures on ICE fell on Monday to their lowest levels in nearly three months, as several commodities took sharp losses and the US dollar hit its highest level since April. "We had a risk-off day across the board," said Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant at Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee.
Cotton pared losses late in the session. Rose said that suggested the fall to April lows stimulated physical demand from mills. Cotton contracts for December settled down by 0.55 cent, a 0.8 percent loss, at 64.67 cents per pound, after falling as low as 64.20 a lb, the lowest level for the second month since April 23. Total futures market volume rose by 9,522 to 17,161 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 332 to 177,082 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of July 17 totalled 135,542 480-lb bales, down from 137,730 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.16 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.26 percent. Speculators cut their net long position in cotton to 46,110 contracts in the week ended July 14, US government data released Friday after market close showed, down from 46,884 in the latest week.