Nov 3 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures edged lower on Friday after hitting an over one-week high earlier in the session on strong technical resistance.
Cotton contracts for December settled 0.36 cent, or 0.5 percent, lower at 68.72 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.35 and 69.37 cents a lb. The contract hit its highest since Oct. 25 earlier in the session and was up 0.7 percent for the week. However, it also registered its biggest one day percentage drop in over a week.
"The 69.50 cent per lb level northward continues to look like a fine spot to take a short position," said Louis Rose, co-founder and director of research and analytics at Rose Commodity, in a note. "With support just north of 66.50 cents, if it is breached, especially with respect to a daily settlement, the next downside target for the December contract is around 65 cents."
Meanwhile, speculators raised a bullish stance in cotton by 1,120 contracts to a four-week high of 50,042 contracts, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed. Total futures market volume fell by 8,981 to 31,135 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 485 to 235,040 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Nov. 2 totaled 27,995 480-lb bales, up from 26,759 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.2 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index , which tracks 19 commodities, was up 0.7 percent.
(Reporting by Nithin Prasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Marguerita Choy)