Sept 18 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures ended higher on Monday, rising intra-day the most percentage-wise in nearly two weeks, on fears of potential damage to crops from Hurricane Maria.
"We have a hurricane stirring out in the Caribbean that could certainly threaten some (cotton) production in the U.S. Eastern Seaboard," said Louis Rose, co-founder and director of research and analytics at Rose Commodity.
The cotton contract for December settled up 0.43 cent, or 0.62 percent, at 69.5 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.8 and 69.95 cents a lb. It registered its biggest intra-day percentage rise since Sept. 5.
A rapidly strengthening Hurricane Mariabarreled toward the eastern Caribbean islands with 125 mile-per-hour (200 kph) winds on Monday, threatening the region with its second major storm this month.
Meanwhile, speculators raised their net long position in cotton by 14,095 contracts to 68,805 contracts in the week to Sept. 5, U.S. government data showed on Friday. This was the largest bullish position since mid-June. "We saw that speculators did not liquidate as much as we thought that they had back on Sept. 12 (after the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report)," Rose added.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly crop progress report on Monday showed 61 percent of the crop was in good or excellent condition against 63 percent a week ago.
Total futures market volume rose by 2,314 to 20,505 lots. Open interest fell 332 to 241,956 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Sept. 15 totaled 4,045 480-lb bales, down from 4,223 in the previous session.
(Reporting by Nithin Prasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)