ICE cotton futures fell 1 percent on Friday, declining for the first week in three, on a lack of clear signs from the trade talks between the United States and China. The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures US - the March contract - settled down 0.76 cent, or 1.02 percent, at 73.64 cents per lb. The front-month contract was down about 0.7 percent for the week, after gaining in the previous two weeks.

"There is no real certainty on a (US-China) trade deal, so people are sought of negative," said Sid Love, commodity trading adviser at Kansas-based Sid Love Consulting. "The business is extremely slow because we don't have any clear direction in the market, we are not in a bull market or a real bear market, we are going sideways," Love said.

White House Economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday that US-China trade talks "had a good vibe" but much work remained before a deal. A US trade delegation will visit China in mid-February for a new round of talks. Cotton prices fell about 8.2 percent in 2018, the first yearly decline in four years, largely due to the trade tussle between top exporter the United States and China, the biggest consumer of the natural fiber.

Total futures market volume fell by 9,499 to 37,187 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 3,476 to 234,985 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Jan. 31 totaled 117,138 480-lb bales, down from 120,309 in the previous session.

Copyright Reuters, 2019