ICE cotton dips over 2 pct on intensifying U.S.-China trade fight

    July 11 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures slipped over 2
percent on Wednesday, to mark its biggest one-day percentage
decline in three weeks, as trade tensions grew with the United
States threatening 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of
imported Chinese goods.
    
    The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S., the
second-month December contract              , settled down 1.84
cent, or 2.13 percent, at 84.54 cents per lb, after rising for
the past three sessions.
    * The contract traded within a range of 84.34 and 86.3 cents
a lb.
    * "There is an increasing concern that China will intensify
tariffs against the U.S. if the trade war escalates," said
Gabriel Crivorot, an analyst at Societe Generale in New York.
    * China accused U.S. of bullying and warned it would hit
back.
                         
    * The United States is the world's biggest cotton exporter,
while
China is the top consumer.
    * Meanwhile, the markets also awaited the release of U.S.
Department of Agriculture's (USDA) monthly World Agricultural
Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) due on Thursday.
    * "Everyone is probably wondering if the USDA will reduce
U.S.
production in tomorrow's report. It maybe too early to see a
sizeable reduction but I think the expectations are that the
numbers should be below 19.5 million bales," said Beau
Stephenson, senior vice president at Omnicotton Inc.
    * Total futures market volume fell by 2,026 to 15,941 lots.
Data
showed total open interest gained 489 to 252,356 contracts in
the previous session.
    * Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as
of July
10 totaled 32,987 480-lb bales, down from 33,604 in the previous
session.
    * FAS India forecasts marketing year 2018/19 cotton
production at
28.7 million 480 lb. bales on 11.85 million hectares.
            


 (Reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru)