NEW YORK, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Cotton futures fell in light volume on Tuesday as traders hesitated to take on new positions before the U.S.Federal ReserveΆs statement expected on Wednesday afternoon.

“People are waiting to see what the Fed is going to do with the rates tomorrow,” said Bobby Walton, president of Walcot Trading Company in Memphis, Tennessee, noting that a lack of high-quality cotton due to weather issues in the United States prevented further losses. TuesdayΆs drop marked the fiberΆs fourth straight session of losses, the longest such streak since August.

March cotton on ICE Futures U.S. CTc1 CTH6 settled down 0.07 cent, or 0.11 percent, at 63.31 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 63.03 and 64.00 cents a lb.

Total futures market volume fell by 3,985 to 13,987 lots.

Data showed total open interest fell 1,776 to 194,129 contracts in the previous session.

Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as of Dec. 14 totaled 65,248 480-lb bales, up from 65,247 in the previous session.

The dollar index .DXY was up 0.63 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index .TRJCRB , which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.02 percent.

The Relative Strength Index in the most-active contract CTc1 fell to 54.084.

(Reporting By Luc Cohen; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)