(Reuters) - New York-traded cotton futures edged higher on Tuesday, garnering support from the previous session's data showing tight supplies of cotton in the United States, the world's top exporter of the fiber.
The most-active May cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S. settled up 0.09 cent, or 0.01 percent, at $91.65 cents a lb.
Prices were pinned in a 124-point range throughout the session on relatively light trading volume, as traders digested the U.S. Department of Agriculture's monthly crop report issued on Monday.
"The USDA report gave the cotton market what it was looking for," said Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown & Co in Moultrie, Georgia.
"We were looking for a 200,000 bale reduction in ending stocks and we got that. We were looking for an increase in exports and we got that. The question is where do we go from here?"
Cotton futures are up about 7 percent on the year as tightening U.S. supplies have offset expectations that world stocks will hit a record, and that Beijing will overhaul in 2014 a stockpiling program that has driven voracious demand for foreign fiber.
Sterling Smith, futures specialist with Citigroup in Chicago, described the USDA report as a "mixed bag".
According to the report, "we have enormous global stocks, while nearby supplies of cotton are hard to secure," Smith said.
"The global balance sheet is bearish, but most of that is in China," he added.
Exchange inventories of U.S. cotton ticked up to 259,742 on Monday, from Friday's 259,581 bales, representing the highest stock levels in almost eight months. (Editing by Diane Craft)