Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Cotton futures gained, erasing earlier losses, on concern that wet weather will hamper crops in the U.S., the worldΆs biggest exporter.
In the next month, cotton areas in the U.S. Southeast, including Georgia, the second-biggest grower, may get above- normal rain, threatening quality and yields, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. The countryΆs output in 2013 will drop 25 percent from a year earlier on reduced acreage, and as farmers in top-producer Texas abandon crops because of the effects of a long-term drought, the government estimates.
“This weather is not good at all,” Jordan Lea, the chairman of Eastern Trading Co., an exporter in Greenville, South Carolina, said in a telephone interview. “Things may get tighter and tighter.”
Cotton for December delivery advanced 0.3 percent to settle at 91.79 cents a pound at 2:34 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, after dropping as much as 1.1 percent. The commodity has risen 22 percent in 2013, the most among 24 raw materials in the Standard & PoorΆs GSCI Spot Index.
Stockpiles at warehouses monitored by ICE slid to the lowest since November 2012.. By July 31, U.S. inventory may fall 26 percent from a year earlier, the Department of Agriculture said Aug. 12.