Nov 7 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures fell over a percent on Tuesday weighed down by selling by funds ahead of the monthly world agricultural demand and supply estimates (WASDE) data due later in the week.
Cotton contracts for December settled down 0.78 cent, or 1.13 percent, at 68.07 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.01 and 68.89 cents a lb. The contract registered its biggest one day percentage drop since Oct. 26.
"Prices are probably moving lower on long liquidation on the December contract because of the Goldman and S&P (index fund) rolls and a lack of buying in March ahead of the WASDE and export reports," said Louis Rose, co-founder and director of research and analytics at Rose Commodity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) WASDE report is due on Thursday.
"Fine harvest weather in the U.S. and an expectation for a neutral to bearish WASDE report are also likely helping prices move lower," Rose added. On Monday, the USDA's weekly crop progress report showed 54 percent of cotton crop was harvested in the United States by the week ended Nov. 5, up from 46 percent in the previous week.
Total futures market volume rose by 11,547 to 56,101 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,688 to 236,988 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Nov. 6 totaled 34,322 480-lb bales, up from 32,922 in the previous session. The dollar index was up 0.15 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index , which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.37 percent.
(Reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)