December cotton futures fell over 5% on the week to trade at 98.28 cents a pound on Thursday morning, on the expectation that rainfall in Texas will lead to an upward revision in US crop supplies following a severe drought.
 
Texas has suffered from one of the worst droughts in more than a century, which dimmed harvest prospects for the season, and instigated a minor rebound in cotton last week. The US is the world’s largest exporter of cotton. Data released from the US Department of Agriculture recently showed that 61% of the Texas crop was in poor condition. That compares with 7% a year earlier. Six traders, analysts and brokers in a Bloomberg News survey said that they expect more than half the fields in Texas this year to be abandoned.
 
The market has also been speculating that China’s cotton demand, the world’s biggest consumer of cotton, may weaken as high prices are leading consumers to switch to synthetic fibres.