ICE cotton futures rose more than 1 percent on Wednesday, propelled by concerns of extreme weather conditions in major cotton-growing region Texas, while a slide in the dollar added to the upbeat sentiment. The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures US, the May contract, settled up 0.87 cent, or 1.16 percent, at 75.72 cents per lb.
The front-month contract touched 75.98 cents per lb earlier in the session, the level last seen on Dec. 20. "There is a huge storm moving its way through Texas. ... There is lot of rain and snow, big winds and field works going to be shut down," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group in Chicago, adding there was also fund buying.
A late-winter blizzard pounded the US central Plains states on Wednesday, bringing high winds and an expected 2 feet of snow, disrupting air travel and causing power outages. The dollar index was down 0.4 percent, which also provided support for cotton prices, analysts said.
A weaker greenback makes commodities priced in dollars, such as cotton, less expensive for holders of other currencies. US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was in no rush to complete a trade deal with China that Washington wants to include structural reforms by Beijing, including how it treats US intellectual property.
Total futures market volume fell by 2,736 to 38,745 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 102 to 220,990 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of March 12 totalled 112,289 480-lb bales, up from 112,228 in the previous session.