ICE cotton snapped a three session falling streak on Thursday and settled marginally higher after hitting a one-month low earlier in the session as markets appeared to digest last week's bearish data from the US Department of Agriculture. Cotton contracts for December settled up 0.09 cent, or 0.1 percent, at 66.91 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 66.64, a bottom since July 17, and 67.09 cents a lb.

"The market has obviously been oversold," said Keith Brown, principal at cotton broker Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia, adding that "(However) to close only 9 points higher today certainly suggests tremendous underlying weakness in the market."

"The market is searching for a bottom here ... We're about to hit harvest within 45 days, so whatever corrective bounce we might have will not be that great," Brown noted. "Ultimately we'll travel down towards 62 cents by December." The US Department of Agriculture on Thursday reported net upland sales of 186,700 running bales for the 2017/2018 crop year.

Total futures market volume fell by 3,582 to 15,356 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 829 to 219,578 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of August 16 totalled 16,842 480-lb bales, down from 17,315 in the previous session.

Copyright Reuters, 2017