ICE cotton futures settled slightly higher on Wednesday, snapping a four-day losing streak on prospects of a trade deal between the United States and China. The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures US, the March contract, settled up 0.08 cent, or 0.11 percent, at 69.86 cents per lb.
The contract traded within a range of 69.65 and 70.62 cents per lb. "Market is consolidating after couple of days of good hard fund selling and keeping an eye on what's going on over in Beijing for some positive news," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group in Chicago. "Current trade talks are bringing little bit of optimism in all the agricultural markets but we don't have any concrete news yet," Scoville said.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said trade talks with China went well on Wednesday, as the world's two largest economies try to iron out an agreement to resolve their dispute. Total futures market volume fell 4,931 lots to 60,029. Data showed total open interest fell 2,970 to 241,956 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Feb. 12 totalled 126,681 480-lb bales, down from 127,358 in the previous session.