ICE cotton futures rose over 1 percent on Friday in light trade, marking its biggest weekly gain in over two months, after the release of US export sales data amid a weaker dollar. Cotton contracts for March settled up 0.79 cent, or 1.11 percent, at 71.93 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 71.07 and 72.08 cents a lb - a peak since September 11 - during an abbreviated session following the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States on Thursday.
Total futures market volume fell by 20,269 to 22,960 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 200 to 230,858 contracts in the previous session. Most of the market participants were away due to the holiday. The contract rose 3.7 percent for the week, its biggest weekly gain since the week of September 1.
The US Department of Agriculture reported net upland sales of 357,000 running bales for the 2017-18 marketing year, down 30 percent from the previous week, but up 18 percent from the prior four-week average. Meanwhile, India, the world's biggest producer of the natural fibre, is expected to export nearly one-fifth less cotton than previously estimated as the crops were found to be infested with pink bollworms.
The dollar index was down 0.47 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.32 percent.
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