Oct 16 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures slid more than 1 percent on Monday, the biggest daily percentage fall in over a month, on expectations of harvest-friendly weather and pressure from a stronger dollar.
The December cotton contact on ICE Futures settled down 1.09 cent, or 1.59 percent, at 67.53 cents per lb, the lowest in two weeks. It traded within a range of 67.53 and 68.88 cents a lb. The contract registered its biggest single-day percentage fall since Sept. 12.
"Dry weather is forecast for the United States for the next seven to fourteen days, which will help a lot with the harvest," said Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly crop progress report on Monday showed 31 percent of cotton crop was harvested in the United States by the week ended Oct. 15, up from 25 percent in the previous week and the 5-year average of 26 percent. It rated 58 percent of the U.S. cotton crop in good to excellent condition, down from 60 percent a week ago, but up from 47 percent year ago, the report said. "Percentage wise, (harvest progress) is already higher than it was in the same period last year and also the five year average as farmers were trying to get in ahead of the storms," Crivorot said, adding "now they're expecting the harvest to speed up."
Total futures market volume rose by 6,727 to 22,706 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 359 to 229,902 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Oct. 13 totaled 6,584 480-lb bales, down from 6,674 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.21 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index , which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.11 percent.
(Reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)