NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures settled
easier on Monday on speculative sales as the market fell for
the first time in four sessions, but volumes remained modest as
the trade looked toward release of a government crop report by
the end of the week, brokers said.
The benchmark March cotton contract on ICE Futures
U.S. fell 1.91 cents to conclude at $1.3043 per lb, dealing
from $1.2803 to $1.3534.
After rallying the past three sessions by ending limit up,
cotton is the second best performer on the Reuters-Jefferies
commodity index, having risen around 72 percent year-to-date.
(Graph: http://link.reuters.com/kew48n)
The volume traded since Monday of last week has been
running at about 50 percent below the 30-day average.
Dealings were higher this week, with volume around 25,600
lots, about 30 percent below the 30-day average of 36,000 lots,
Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.
'We're in the process of consolidating,' said Ron Lawson,
cotton specialist at logicadvisors.com in Sonoma, California.
He said there appeared to be a paucity of drivers for the
cotton market this week, with most of the attention in the
trade turning to the monthly supply/demand report from the U.S.
Agriculture Department due out on Friday.
Traders said the market will also take a look at the USDA's
weekly crop progress report on Monday at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT),
although most of the U.S. cotton harvest is already done.
There was little inspiration to be derived from China's
cotton market. Key May cotton futures on the Zhengzhou
Commodity Exchange was last done at 26,910 yuan per tonne on
Monday, up 205 yuan on the day.
The high price regime turns the focus of market players to
prospective spring 2011 cotton plantings in countries such as
the United States and in China to see if producers will be able
to churn out more cotton given.
Analytical firm Informa Economics upped its U.S. cotton
plantings forecast in 2011 to 12.2 million acres, a 4-year high
and nearly 12 percent higher than 2010 cotton sowings of 10.909
million acres.
