NEW YORK: ICE cotton futures rose on Friday, buoyed by a weaker dollar, though the natural fiber was on course for a weekly decline on fears over increased supply amid improving growing conditions and a hurricane which only caused minimal damage to the crop.
Cotton contracts for December rose 0.91 cent, or 1%, to 94.20 cents per lb, by 12:35 p.m. EDT.
Prices were on course for 0.6% fall in the week. Analysts said Hurricane Ida had little impact on the cotton crop as it swept through Louisiana and Mississippi.
But boosting cotton demand and lowering the cost to buyers holding other currencies, the dollar index fell to a one-month low.
“It’s not going to take a whole lot to move cotton above 95 cents if we have some type of event,” said Jim Nunn, owner of Tennessee cotton brokerage Nunn Cotton, noting that the US Department of Agriculture’s supply and demand report next week could be such an event, as could another hurricane.
“Cotton demand is still good, but the availability of supply due to logistics continues to be a big concern because, if you can’t get it shipped, customers are not going to buy it.”
The USDA’s weekly export sales report on Thursday showed exports of 168.6 Running Bales (RB), which was lower than the 201,700 RB in the prior week.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Sep. 3 totalled 68,502 480-lb bales, unchanged the previous session.