May 30 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures slipped on Wednesday after marking a more than four-year high, weighed down by profit-taking and the rolling over of positions by index funds to the December contract.
* ICE cotton contract for July expiry settled down 0.72 cent, or 0.77 percent, at 92.49 cents per lb. Cotton futures traded within a range of 91.22 and 96.4 cents a lb, a peak since March 2014.
* The contract for December expiry settled 0.2 percent higher at 90.85 cents per lb. The contract touched an all-time high of 93.73 cents a lb earlier in the session.
* "We are seeing funds, particularly the Roger Index fund, roll out, selling July and buying to some extent in December. The margins have gone up so I guess that has curbed some buying in December," said Louis Rose, director of research and analytics at Tennessee-based Rose Commodity.
* Speculators took some profits and part of that was a result of the margin prices going up, Rose added, saying demand for cotton seemed to have been curbed at current price levels.
* ICE Clear U.S. raised margins for Cotton Futures (CT) by 25 percent to $2,500 per contract from $2,000 effective beginning with the closing of business on Tuesday.
* The U.S. Department of Agriculture in its weekly crop progress report released on Tuesday showed the 2018 U.S. cotton crop was 62 percent planted for the week ended May 27, as against a five-year average of 59 percent for the week.
* Market participants are keeping a close watch on rain in Texas, the major cotton-growing region in the United States.
* "We finally realized we didn't get hurt due to the storm (Alberto). Given the build up, it was pretty much a non-event ... Outlook for Texas weather is not good. The heat is as much a concern as the dry weather," Rose said.
* Effective with the start of trading for Thursday, the daily trading limit for all cotton No. 2 futures contract delivery months will revert to 4 cents per pound above and below the prior day settlement price, ICE Futures U.S. said on Wednesday.
* Total futures market volume rose by 61,142 to 98,113 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 3,201 to 306,930 contracts in the previous session.
* Certificated cotton stocks <CERT-COT-STX> deliverable as of May 29 totaled 74,143 480-lb bales, down from 87,541 in the previous session. (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Brown)
