Cotton futures fell on Thursday after a US government report showed a drop in weekly export sales, but found support around 63 cents a lb and ended 2015 as one of just a few commodities to gain on the year. "The market's well-supported, it's just a question of how much higher we can go in the near-term," said Peter Egli, director of risk management for British merchant Plexus cotton. March cotton on ICE Futrues US settled down 0.69 cent, or 1.08 percent, at 63.28 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 63.05 and 63.91 cents a lb.

Benchmark cotton prices finished 2015 up 5 percent. US cotton exports for the 2015/16 crop totalled 106,700 bales last week, down 10 percent from the previous week and down 27 percent from the prior four-week average. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of December 30 totalled 64,340 480-lb bales, unchanged from the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.38 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.79 percent.

Copyright Reuters, 2016