Cotton futures edged higher on Friday in choppy, thin trade, pinned between short covering and producer selling near the key level of 61 cents a lb. The most-active March cotton contract on ICE Futures US closed up 0.07 cent, or 0.1 percent, at 60.89 cents a lb after trading higher for much of the day.
Falling grains markets and a stronger US dollar weighed.
Cotton can rise and fall in sympathy with crops including corn and soybeans, with which it competes for acreage.
The dollar rose to multi-year highs against a basket of major currencies, making greenback-traded commodities including cotton more expensive to holders of other currencies.
"People are taking off for the holidays," said Louis Rose, an independent cotton trader and consultant at Risk Analytics in Tennessee. "It doesn't take much selling or short covering to push us ..."
Futures were down early in the session, pressured by worries over demand after a disappointing US government export report on Thursday showed a large number of cancellations on previously booked orders and weak shipments.
Informa Economics on Friday forecast US cotton plantings will fall to 9.6 million acres in 2015, down 13 percent from the prior year.
Farmers are expected to plant fewer acres of fibre as benchmark futures have tumbled about 30 percent year-to-date.
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