ICE cotton futures soared over 3 percent on Thursday, propped up by fund buying after hitting a one-month low in the previous session. A large number of contracts were sold in a very short period at three points during Thursday's session, which threw prices way up, said Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York.

The July cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 3.52 percent at 79.18 cents per lb., the biggest intra-day percentage gain for the contract in 10 months. Weekly export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed net upland sales last week totalled 160,600 running bales, up 5 percent from the week before.

The July cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 2.69 cents, or 3.52 percent, the biggest intra-day percentage gain since July 12, 2016, at 79.18 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 76.17 and 79.21 cents a lb. Total futures market volume rose by 30,961 lots to 65,720 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 3,784 to 254,040 contracts in the previous session. The dollar index was down 0.03 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.52 percent.

Copyright Reuters, 2017