Cotton futures fell for the first time in four sessions on Thursday, as a strong US government export sales report was outweighed by a stronger dollar and continued concern about economic growth in China, the world's top cotton consumer. "Sales were on the good side of average," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi. "The cotton set-up is friendly, but these macro forces are negative, so we're kind of balanced out."
March cotton settled down 0.24 cent, or 0.39 percent, at 61.90 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 61.75 and 62.46 cents a lb.
Export sales for the 2015/16 crop year reached 171,000 bales last week, according to a weekly US Department of Agriculture report, up from the prior week and up 68 percent from the prior four-week average.
Total futures market volume fell by 1,157 to 21,491 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 927 to 181,667 contracts in the previous session.
Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of January 13 totalled 64,141 480-lb bales, marginally down from 64,142 in the previous session.
The dollar index was up 0.13 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.45 percent.
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