The world's insatiable appetite for cotton helped push up the soft fiber's futures to record highs for a third straight day, Bloomberg reports.
For week ended February 3, shipments of the commodity from the U.S. – the globe's largest cotton exporter – shot up 26 percent as compared to the week prior, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported on Thursday. During the past 365 days, cotton futures have at least doubled, largely because of inclement weather in China, which is the largest consumer of cotton.
"The U.S. export sales showed that despite the high price of cotton, demand isn’t dipping," Ker Chung Yang, an analyst at Phillip Futures of Singapore, told the news service.
Shortly after 2 p.m. on Friday, cotton futures were up 1.53 percent, a 2.87 cents to $1.9045 per pound.
One consultant said she would not be surprised to see cotton futures climb to $2 per pound, but she did not specify when. She predicted more of the commodity will be cultivated.
"We will see a huge increase in planting globally because of the way cotton has run up, and that will gradually start pressurizing prices," Judith Gaines-Chase of Katonah, New York told the news service.
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