June 26 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures fell on Friday as concerns of a resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak soured market sentiment and cast doubts over demand for the natural fiber.
* Cotton contracts for December fell 0.23 cent, or 0.4%, at 59.47 cents per lb by 02:17 p.m. ET (1817 GMT). It traded within a range of 59.26 and 59.85 cents a lb.
* The contract was down about 0.5% so far this week.
* “It’s down because of the economy - more infections and worry about lockdowns, slowing economic activity and cotton consumption worldwide is awful,” said John Bondurant, a trader in Memphis, Tennessee.
* U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday that 16 states saw a rise in cases of the novel coronavirus and called on Americans to embrace social distancing to minimize the spread of the disease.
* Demand for cotton and apparel has been hammered by worldwide coronavirus restrictions, sending prices of the natural fiber tumbling 16% so far this year.
* Market participants also kept a close watch on the Sino-U.S. trade developments after a report that U.S. intervention in Chinese interests could risk the Phase 1 trade deal.
* “There’s a lack of trading as there’s no clear direction to the market and nobody wants to go short at these kind of (price) levels,” said Sid Love, commodity trading adviser at Kansas-based Sid Love Consulting.
* Investors are awaiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s acreage report on Tuesday. A Reuters poll shows analysts estimate 13.153 million acres of U.S. 2020 cotton plantings.
* Total futures market volume fell by 4,869 to 6,989 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 52 to 158,929 contracts in the previous session.
* Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as of June 25 totaled 38,302 480-lb bales, down from 39,261 in the previous session. (Reporting by Asha Sistla in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang)
Source: Reuters