NEW YORK, Oct 29 (Reuters) – ICE cotton futures rose in light volume on Thursday, as merchants said physical demand remained weak and that market participants were waiting on further clarity on the impact of recent rains in U.S.growing regions on harvest progress.

“You had an export report that was indicative of lackluster demand,” said Michael Quinn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Carolinas Cotton Growers Cooperative, adding that the market was discounting any crop damage due to recent rains across U.S.cotton-growing regions.

December cotton on ICE Futures U.S. CTc2 settled 0.35 cent lower on Thursday, a 0.6 percent loss, at 62.32 cents per pound. It traded within a range of 62.16 and 62.92 cents a pound.

Export sales of upland cotton totaled for the 2015/16 crop year totaled 76,100 bales, down 22 percent from the prior week and down 38 percent from the prior four-week average.

Once again, there were no sales to top-consumer China

Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as of Oct 28 totaled 47,132 480-lb bales, up from 46,674 in the previous session.

The dollar index .DXY was down 0.52 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index .TRJCRB , which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.47 percent.

The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract CTc1 fell to 48.22.

(Reporting By Luc Cohen and Chris Prentice; Editing by Marguerita Choy)