Cotton Reverses Course to End Lower
November 21 2017 - 5:53PM
Dow Jones News
By Julie Wernau
Cotton futures reversed course to end lower Tuesday after a
short covering rally stalled out amid signs of a rapid and robust
U.S. harvest.
Cotton for March delivery fell 1% to end at 70.14 cents a pound
on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange, after rising as high as 71.34
cents a pound in earlier trade.
The contract breached 70 cents a pound on Monday, which Rose
Commodity Groups said triggered stop orders. The firm expected the
contract to meet resistance between 71 and 72 cents.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to estimate a
bumper U.S. crop, which is 74% complete, ahead of the average pace.
Remaining upside could still come from surprising production
forecasts over the next several months, along with bullish exports
and sales of U.S. cotton abroad, said John Robinson at Texas
A&M.
But so far the pace of export shipments against the 2017-2018
marketing year are short of the USDA's target at about 67%,
according to Rose Commodity Group.
"The world outside of China is building a cushion against an
eventual rise in Chinese imports. A key question for prices when
Chinese imports increase is how rapidly it might happen," Cotton
Inc., the marketing arm for the U.S. cotton industry, said in its
monthly economic letter.
In other markets, raw sugar for March fell 0.7% to 14.88 cents a
pound, cocoa for March was up 1% at $2,110 a ton, arabica coffee
for March jumped 0.7% to end at $1.2665 a pound, January frozen
concentrated orange juice futures lost 0.3% to end at $1.6675 a
pound.
Write to Julie Wernau at julie.wernau@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2017 17:38 ET (22:38 GMT)
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