ICE cotton futures fell 1 percent in low-volume trading on Friday with many market participants staying away in a holiday-shortened week and as positive export sales data failed to cheer a market hoping for increased buying from China, the largest consumer. The most-active cotton contract on ICE Futures US, the third-month December contract, fell 0.66 cent, or 0.98%, at 66.59 cents per lb by 13:52 EDT (1752 GMT). It traded within a range of 66.43 and 67.43 cents a lb.

Weekly export sales data from the US Department of Agriculture showed net sales of 141,500 running bales for 2018/2019, up 96 percent from the previous week and up noticeably from the prior four-week average. "There has been a little bit of selling pressure due to less liquidity in the markets and extremely low volumes," said Bailey Thomen, cotton risk management associate with INTL FCStone. ICE Futures US soft agricultural commodity futures and options markets were closed on Thursday for the Independence Day holiday. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of July 3 totalled 72,254 480-lb bales, down from 74,351 in the previous session.

Copyright Reuters, 2019