Feb 19 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures settled higher on Tuesday, having touched a one-week high earlier in the session, helped by a weaker dollar, while investors focused on the latest round of trade talks between the United States and China.
* The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S., the March
contract , settled up 0.19 cent, or 0.27 percent, at 70.41
cents per lb.
* The front-month contract touched its highest level since Feb. 11 at 71.09 cents.
* "The main supporting factor today was the fall in (the) dollar," said Gabriel Crivorot, analyst at Societe Generale in New York.
* The dollar index was down 0.4 percent. A weaker greenback makes commodities priced in dollars, such as cotton, less expensive for holders of other currencies.
* On Tuesday, the United States and China launched a new round of talks in Washington, with follow-up sessions scheduled later in the week, amid increasing optimism for a breakthrough in the trade talks.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that trade talks with China were going well and suggested he was open to pushing off the deadline to complete negotiations.
* Crivorot said it is a relief that Trump appears to be pre-emptively backing down from his March 1 deadline.
* Total futures market volume rose by 7,601 to 42,936 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 256 to 237,643 contracts in the previous session.
* Certificated cotton stocks <CERT-COT-STX> deliverable as of Feb. 18 totaled 129,104 480-lb bales, unchanged from 129,104 in the previous session.
(Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan Oatis)