March 13 (Reuters) - 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 U.S., 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 U.S. 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.
* U.S. 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
U.S. 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 <CERT-COT-STX> deliverable as
of
March 12 totaled 112,289 480-lb bales, up from 112,228 in the
previous session.
(Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter
Cooney)