Cotton futures inched up on Tuesday as the prior session's fall to more than one-month lows spurred mill buying, though a sharply stronger dollar prevented any stronger gains. "There's a little business going on at this lower end of the range," said Bobby Walton, president of Walcot Trading Company in Memphis, Tennessee. Cotton contracts for March settled up 0.07 cent, or 0.11 percent, at 62.68 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 62.51 and 62.86 cents a lb.
Total futures market volume fell by 13,672 to 16,131 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 801 to 184,593 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of January 4 totalled 64,340 480-lb bales, unchanged from 64,340 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.50 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.81 percent. Speculators cut their net long position to 48,414 from 49,493 in the week ended December 29, according to US government data released on Monday after market close.