* Cotton closes lower for 6th trading day in a row
* Cotton market awaits USDA supply/demand report Thursday
* Weekly export sales, shipments due at same time
NEW YORK, May 9 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures posted
another five-month low on Wednesday as prices continued their
descent, pulled down by selling in other commodity markets to
their sixth straight lower close.
"The dollar's up, crude oil's down, gold is down, grains are
down, the stock market is down. Why would anyone think cotton
would be up?" said Jobe Moss of MCM Inc in Lubbock, Texas.
Moreover, on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT), the U.S.
Department of Agriculture will issue its first crop outlook for
the 2012/13 marketing season (August/July).
Many players have maintained a cautious stance ahead of the
widely anticipated supply/demand report, giving sellers the
upper hand with little opposition.
July cotton on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange finished
down .36 cent, or 0.42 percent, at 85.82 cents per lb, after
trading between 85.31 to 87.34 cents per lb.
The settlement price marked July cotton's lowest close for a
second-position contract since mid December, 2011, according to
Thomson Reuters data. July volume came in at 14,341 lots.
New-crop December slipped .96 cent to close at 83.37
cents a lb. Prices spanned 82.84 to 85.09 cents during the
session. December volume came to 5,961 lots.
USDA will come out with its first U.S. production estimate
for the 2012/2013 season. Analysts said the forecast begins as a
statistical calculation based on estimates for the crop yield,
abandonment rate, March planting intentions, and other factors
that USDA will fine tune as the year progresses.
After USDA's report from last May showed a large discrepancy
with actual results, Moss said he cannot guess what Thursday's
figures will be but is preparing for a negative outlook.
"I think the crop report will be negative. It was so
negative last time that it would be hard for cotton to rally
with those kinds of figures," said Moss.
Last year, he pointed out, USDA's May report predicted
global consumption of 119.5 million bales. In last month's
report, it showed world demand at 107.6 million bales, well
short of the original forecast with a 12 million bale miss.
Also on Thursday, analysts, on average, look for paltry
weekly export sales of 40,000 running bales, with shipments
healthy at 275,000 bales, a survey by Reuters showed.
While export sales have been negative for several weeks
because of cancellations, analysts said the USDA's annual export
forecast has already nearly been met for old crop cotton.
Light showers forecast for U.S. cotton growing regions
should continue to help the crop, while pressuring prices that
were driven up, in part, by weeks of dry weather during planting
season.
Wednesday's estimated volume increased to 20,833 lots, about
27 percent below the 30-day average, according to Thomson
Reuters data.
Cotton's open interest rose by 695 lots to 184,764 lots as
of May 8, ICE Futures U.S. exchange data showed.