Cotton Futures Drop as Traders Await Fiber Sales Report
July 26 2017 - 9:38AM
Dow Jones News
By Julie Wernau
Cotton futures slumped Wednesday, unable to sustain gains that
followed a report yesterday that showed crop conditions slipping in
the U.S.
The weekly U.S. Department of Agriculture report, released
Tuesday, showed that 55% of cotton is in good or excellent
condition, down from 60% last week but still higher than 52% a year
ago for this time of year.
Cotton for December delivery lost 0.4% to 68.58 cents a pound on
the ICE Futures U.S. exchange as traders look ahead to Thursday's
report on demand for cotton overseas.
Rose Commodity Group said that its technical trading analysis
suggests the overall risk of prices making a sustained run more to
the downside is somewhat greater than that to the upside.
While weather forecasts are calling for hot and dry weather that
is causing stress to parts of Texas, the largest U.S. growing
regions, irrigated areas are managing through the heat, say Price
Futures Group and the U.S. delta and southeast growing regions have
seen good growing conditions.
"Mother Nature holds the key to forthcoming price activity,"
noted O.A. Cleveland, consulting economist at Cotton Experts.
In other markets, raw sugar for October was up 0.1% at 13.92
cents a pound, cocoa for September lost 0.4% at $1,919 a ton,
arabica coffee for September was up 0.4% at $1.311 a pound and
September frozen concentrated orange juice lost 0.6% at $1.3185 a
pound.
Write to Julie Wernau at julie.wernau@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 26, 2017 09:23 ET (13:23 GMT)
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