* Cotton has fallen for six straight sessions
* U.S. plantings delayed in cotton belt - USDA
* Specs raised bullish bets in latest CFTC data
NEW YORK, May 28 (Reuters) - ICE cotton extended its losing streak on Tuesday as speculative investors continued to offload bullish bets even after U.S. data showed delays in planting for the upcoming 2013/14 season.
Falling for a sixth straight session, the most-active July cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S. edged down 0.07 cent, or 0.9 percent, to settle at 81.42 cents per pound.
Little physical business was transacted even while prices languish close to four-month lows. On Friday, July slumped to 81.03 cents, its lowest since late January, on long liquidation.
On Tuesday, early optimism on the back of a rally in corn and soybeans and stronger U.S. consumer confidence data petered out by early afternoon as speculative selling resumed.
"We believe the selling of speculative long positions by funds is still ongoing in cotton," said INTL FCStone analysts.
"We would expect the selling to continue until the physical market can recover demand."
In forward contracts, prices were buoyed after the U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly crop progress report showed 59 percent of U.S. cotton acreage had been planted in the week to May 26.
That is up from 39 percent from the week before, but much lower than the 76 percent planted by the same time last year and well below the five-year average of 69 percent.
Most plantings across the cotton belt, including Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Kansas, lagged further behind. The exception was drought-hit Texas, the largest producing state in the United States, which saw plantings jump to 49 percent from the prior week's 29 percent.
December futures prices, which represent the 2013/14 crop, settled at 83.94 cents per lb, up 0.17 cent, or 0.2 percent, from 83.77 cents on Friday.
The latest data released on Friday ahead of the long bank holiday weekend in the United States showed that speculators increased their net longs in the fiber in the week to May 21. The latest sell-off started a day earlier. (Reporting by Josephine Mason; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)
