Cotton futures rose one percent on Wednesday, snapping a six-session falling streak, boosted by speculative buying and an easing dollar even as crop harvest progressed unhindered in US producing regions. "It looks like someone just wanted to buy a lot of contracts and they did," said Gabriel Crivorot, an analyst at Societe Generale in New York.
A weaker US dollar also helped but it was not the main driver of prices, Crivorot said. The first-month December cotton contract on ICE Futures jumped 1.12 percent, their biggest intra-day percentage rise in nearly two weeks. The market awaited the release of the US Department of Agriculture's weekly export sales report on Thursday.
The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 0.77 cent, or 1.12 percent, their biggest intra day percentage rise since October 14, at 69.26 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.22 and 69.88 cents a lb. The dollar index was down 0.10 percent. Total futures market volume rose by 3,350 to 26,026 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 99 to 260,503 contracts in the previous session.