Cotton futures touched their lowest in nearly a week on Wednesday in cautious trading ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, amid a stronger dollar. "The market isn't moving much today; pretty quiet pre-holiday trading," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. The natural fiber market also awaited Friday's weekly export sales data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
"As the market prepares for the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday and abbreviated trading session on Friday, traders must consider the very real probability that US export sales for the week ending November 17 are likely to be one of the lowest totals put forth in some time," Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee, said in a note.
On Friday, the cotton market will open late at 8 am ET (1300 GMT) and close early at 1 pm ET. Cotton prices were likely to remain strong in the near term due to limited supply from India, analysts at Societe Generale said in a note. A move by the Indian government to ban high-value currency notes has led to delays in exports from the top producer.
The March cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.6 cent, or 0.83 percent, at 71.64 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 70.63 cents and 72.32 cents a lb. Total futures market volume fell by 10,669 to 21,162 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 280 to 251,793 contracts in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.64 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.07 percent.