ICE Cotton is trading at $83.06 following disappointing Retail Sales data from the United States

Without a clear-cut direction, ICE Cotton is trading around $83.06 per pound and ranging between $82.64 and $83.65.

• United States's Retail Sales new data released of -1% below its previous figure.
• While flat so far today, Cotton is on an 8 day bullish trend, gaining a total of $2.34 throughout.

Core Retail Sales in United States fell short of market expectations (-0.3%) with a reading of -0.8%, continuing the decline from the previous figure of 0%. Retail Sales in United States fell short of market expectations (-0.4%) with a reading of -1%, continuing the decline from the previous figure of -0.2%.

Cotton made an initial break below its 5 day Simple Moving Average at $82.9, a possible indication of a forthcoming negative trend. ICE Cotton formed a session range of $82.64 to $83.65 leaving buyers and sellers highly concentrated around an active Fibonacci support level of $82.92. ICE Cotton's upper Bollinger Band® is at $85.15, suggesting that a downward move may follow. Despite this, Cotton is approaching key support, around 61 cents away from $82.45. Dipping below could indicate further losses are ahead while a failure to break below this level is likely to be seen positively by market bulls.

Despite the market lacking direction, technical chart analysis strongly suggests ICE Cotton is positioned for a downward move in the near term.

Trading mostly sideways for 3 months. Having soared to a high of $154.89 approximately 11 months ago, the Cotton future is now trading 46.29% lower.