Cotton futures rose to their highest level in about a week on Thursday, supported by robust weekly US export sales data, but gains were limited by a stronger dollar. "We saw an immediate reaction by the market as prices spiked up when the numbers were released," said Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York.
Export data from the US Department of Agriculture showed net upland sales of 405,200 running bales of cotton for the week ended Dec. 1, compared with 202,300 running bales from the previous week. "One concern with surprising export reports is that the sales have already been hedged, which makes a lot of difference when speculators already have an extended long position like they do now," said Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee.
The USDA's monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report is due on Friday. The March cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 0.37 cent, or 0.52 percent, at 71.42 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 70.9 cents to 71.95 cents a lb, the highest since Dec. 1. Total futures market volume rose by 4,992 to 20,794 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 772 to 250,285 contracts in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.92 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.31 percent. Pakistan has resumed cotton imports from its top supplier India after suspending them for few days, government and industry officials told Reuters on Thursday.