Cotton futures dipped on Wednesday, pressured by a stronger US dollar and a rout across the commodity complex, even amid concerns that unfavourable weather had delayed harvests and damaged crop quality. "Oil's got a three in front of it," said a California cotton merchant, referring to US crude's drop to below $40 a barrel. "Quality's suffering, and cotton's stuck in a range."
March cotton on ICE Futures US settled down 0.04 cent, or 0.06 percent, at 63.50 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 63.25 and 63.93 cents a lb. Total futures market volume fell by 3,321 to 18,932 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,363 to 180,779 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of December 1 totalled 65,409 480-lb bales, unchanged from the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.2 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.92 percent. The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract fell to 55.824.