July 2 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures fell over 1 percent on Monday to mark a six-week low as investors remained on the sidelines amid trade tensions between the United States, the world's biggest cotton exporter, and top consumer China.
* The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S., the third-month December contract , settled down 0.99 cent, or 1.18 percent, at 82.93 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 82.85, its lowest level since May 21, and 85.09 cents a lb.
* Speculators are not buying anything until they know what the U.S.-China trade dispute is going to result in, said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton. "They're in a wait-and-see mode."
* Investors have been anxious ahead of the July 6 deadline when the United States is set to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of goods from China, with Beijing expected to respond with tariffs of its own on U.S. goods. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will factor in China and Mexico's tariffs against American farm products in its global supply and demand crop report in July, if these tariffs do take effect, USDA Chief Economist Rob Johansson told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "The fact we couldn't hold the gain from Friday kind of created a negative momentum, short term at least. And we got a little bit of rain in Texas last night, which is not significant but enough to get people excited," Egli said.
* Total futures market volume fell by 958 to 24,067 lots. Data showed total open interest remained at 257,277 contracts in the previous session.
* Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as of June 29 totaled 91,766 480-lb bales, down from 92,799 in the previous session.
Source: Reuters