ICE cotton futures settled nearly unchanged on Thursday, as the market awaited progress in the trade talks between top exporter the United States and China, the biggest consumer of the natural fiber. The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures US - the March contract - settled up 0.04 cent, or 0.05 percent, at 74.4 cents per lb. The front-month contract touched its highest since Dec. 21 at 74.85 cents earlier in the session.

"There are traders who are optimistic about agreement with China," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. "Market has retraced and bounced about all it can, 74.85 is all it can do." Cotton prices struggled in 2018, marking its first yearly decline in four years, mostly due to the trade tussle between the United States and China.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported its first weekly US export data since a government shutdown ended. Data from USDA showed net sales for the fiber in the 2018/19 marketing year were up to 373,100 running bales (RB) in the week ending Dec. 20 last year. It also showed exports of 14,700 RB were up 44 percent from the previous week.

Total futures market volume rose by 11,407 to 37,472 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 119 to 231,509 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocksdeliverable as of Jan. 30 totaled 120,309 480-lb bales, unchanged from 120,309 in the previous session.

Copyright Reuters, 2019