ICE cotton futures fell for the third straight session on Thursday on technical selling ahead of the first notice day for the March contract due next week. "The market crossed over the short-term uptrend line so that probably sparked selling," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton. "I think the market is just losing a bit of steam... probably pulling back towards 74-75 cents in May."

Weekly export sales data from the US government showed net upland sales totaled 222,200 running bales for the week ended February 9, up 7 percent from the week before. The premium for May futures to March futures hit its highest ever on Thursday. The March cotton contract settled down about 1 percent at 75.01 cents per lb on Thursday.

The May cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.51 cent, or 0.66 percent, at 76.77 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 76.76 and 77.44 cents a lb. Total futures market volume rose by 10,365 to 49,521 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 3,192 to 278,866 contracts in +the previous session.

Copyright Reuters, 2017