1500 EST [Dow Jones]--Cotton futures prices on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange
for December delivery, once the leader of the "soft" commodities, settled down
1.43 cents or 1% at $1.3875 a pound--the only one of the softs to continue
lower Monday after Friday's general commodities sell-off. March futures prices,
however, settled up 0.02 cent at $1.342 a pound. Sharon Johnson, cotton analyst
at First Capitol Group in Atlanta, noted that neither the December nor March
futures contracts traded "limit down" on the day, an improvement from the end
of the last week. Traders continue to roll out of the December contract into
March, she added, though confidence in the expectation of such high prices as
seen last week--the highest since the end of the U.S. Civil War--appeared
shaken by sell-offs Thursday and Friday despite continuing demand from Asia.