Cotton futures fell on Thursday,
halting three days of gains, on a weak U.S. export sales report
ahead of the Easter weekend holiday in the United States.

"Historically, speculators are reluctant to hold a long
position ahead of a long weekend, particularly given China's
history of making market moving announcements, sales, or
purchases on holidays and weekends," said Barry Bean, a cotton
buyer based in Gideon, Missouri.

Cotton trading on ICE Futures U.S. will be closed on Friday
for the Good Friday holiday.

Sales of upland cotton totaled 84,400 running bales for the
week ended March 17, down 63 percent from the previous week,
government data showed.

* The front-month May contract on ICE Futures U.S.
settled down 0.67 cent, or 1.15 percent, at 57.72 cents per lb,
after touching a low of 57.33 cents. The contract ended the week
up about 0.98 percent.

* Industry firm Cotton Outlook (Cotlook) kept unchanged its
forecast for global cotton stocks to fall in the current 2015/16
year and 2016/17, as global consumption outpace production.

* The dollar index was up 0.08 percent. The Thomson
Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19
commodities, was down 0.61 percent.

(Reporting by Arpan Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard
Chang)