ICE cotton rose on Tuesday, extending substantial gains from the prior session to hit its highest level in more than two weeks on concerns that flooding and rains in the US Southeast would damage crop quality, and also on support from a broader rally in the commodities complex. "You always get a little bit of a follow-through on such a strong move as we had yesterday," said Chris Kramedjian, a risk management consultant with INTL FCStone in Memphis, Tennessee, noting that the day's gains were also largely attributable to "the general commodity rally."
Cotton traded within a relatively tight range, as moves above 62 cents a pound attracted selling from producers, Kramedjian said. December cotton on ICE Futures US settled up by 0.21 cent on Tuesday, a 0.3 percent gain, at 62.08 cents per pound. It traded within a range of 61.71 and 62.33 cents a pound. Total futures market volume fell by 12,733 to 15,796 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,515 to 190,003 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of October 15 totalled 44,326 480-lb bales, down from 44,843 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.71 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 1.91 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract rose to 52.134.