Cotton falls on stronger dollar ahead of WASDE report

Cotton futures fell on Friday as a stronger dollar offset positive exports sales data and traders looked ahead to the release of a US government world agriculture supply and demand (WASDE) report on Monday. Weekly export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed net upland sales totalled 344,500 running bales of cotton for the week ended September 1, compared with 309,200 running bales in the prior week.

"We had excellent exports, but we are ignoring those because we're watching the US dollar climb," said Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia. The dollar rose on Friday as remarks by Federal Reserve policymakers helped boost investor expectations of a near-term increase in US interest rates. The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.21 cent, or 0.30 percent, at 69.08 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.25 and 69.38 cents a lb. The dollar index was up 0.43 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.66 percent. The second month December cotton contract on ICE Futures US registered a rise of 1.9 percent this week.