The most active ICE cotton contracts for March expiry settled down 0.15 cent, or 0.19 percent, at 78.8 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 78.6 and 79.45 cents a lb, a new peak for the contract. "The demand is still good. That is what is keeping the market up...
This market has been up for 10 weeks in a row. It is beginning to look tired. I would look for some profit-taking next week," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. "Traders will be looking at tomorrow's (export) sales figure to lead them into next week."
The weekly export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture will be released on Friday, delayed by a day due to the Christmas holiday on Monday. "US speculators and growers are not selling right now because of tax issues. If they book profits in 2018, they will get a much bigger tax cut. I see some selling in early January," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton.
Meanwhile, total futures market volume fell by 7,697 to 18,536 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 3,962 to 278,565 contracts in the previous session. "Today was a rather dull session for the cotton market which traded mildly lower throughout the day and under low volume with most traders calling it a day for 2017," Anestis Arampatzis, risk management consultant with INTL FCStone said in a note.
Copyright Reuters, 2017