* Profit-taking dominates trade
* Government report Wednesday on cotton supply, demand
NEW YORK, Sept 10 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures closed
lower on Monday, snapping two straight days of gains from last
week, as players took profits ahead of key government crop data
due this week, traders said.
Players are awaiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
September crop production report due Wednesday to gauge supply
and demand in cotton for the remainder of the year.
"Fundamentally, there's really no news affecting cotton
until then, so everyone's watching the broader macro trends for
now and hardly doing anything," said Mike Stevens, an
independent cotton analyst in Mandeville, Louisiana.
Outside of cotton, most commodity markets rose on Monday,
with oil and copper prices extending their gains from Friday on
growing optimism there will be new economic stimulus soon in the
United States.
Investors are betting the Federal Reserve will launch a
third round of quantitative easing or bond buying this week to
spur on the U.S. economic recovery.
Monthly jobs data from the Labor Department last week showed
U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased only by 96,000 in August,
against market expectations for a 125,000 rise. The Fed is
holding a two-day policy meeting that will end Thursday and
speculation is rife it could approve a QE3.
U.S. cotton's benchmark December futures contract in New
York fell 0.67 cents to close at 75.63 cents per lb,
after moving between 76.30 and 75.23 cents.
"We're just horsing around at these levels, unless we break
below the Aug.21 level of 74.60 which marked a double-down for
the December contract," Stevens said.