ICE cotton rose over 1% on Wednesday on concerns regarding the crop's condition due to poor weather in the major crop producing regions, while investors awaited details about the signing of the US-China trade deal after Chile withdrew as host of the APEC summit. Cotton contracts for December rose 0.9 cent, or 1.4%, to 65.62 cents per lb as of 12:26 p.m. EDT (1626 GMT).
“There is some pretty bad weather, some snow and rain in Texas and rains in the delta and the southeast. Also, there is hopes for better demand to show up in the export-sales report tomorrow," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “The harvest is moving along pretty well up until now … If we start hearing of a lot of damage (due to the weather), that will change people's mind."
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Monday said the US cotton harvest was 46% complete, compared with a five-year average of 43%. USDA is scheduled to release its weekly export-sales report on Thursday. Total futures market volume fell by 2,268 to 24,485 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,691 to 241,579 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Oct. 29 totaled 24,948 480-lb bales, up from 23,378 in the previous session.
