June 21 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures dropped for a ninth
straight session on Wednesday to more than eight-month lows,
driven by investor liquidations as well as falling crude oil
prices.

"There is no reason for cotton to go up when the synthetics
are going down," said Jobe Moss, a broker with MCM Inc in
Lubbock, Texas.

"The funds have got stuff down their throat. ... They are
all long around 74-75 cents and have to liquidate. And then we
have outside forces like crude oil prices," he said.

Oil prices fell about 3 percent to a 10-month low in heavy
trading on Wednesday.

Cotton contracts for December settled down 0.8 cent,
or 1.16 percent, at 68.17 cents per lb. The contract traded
within a range of 68.13 and 69.67 cents a lb.

Prices hit a low of 68.13 cents, the worst since October 12,
2016.

"We thought the December would hold around 68.50 and might
get a pop-up somewhere. But looks like it will not. If we take
out 67.80, we might see a support around 65.50," Moss said.

Chances of bulk new crop harvest in major growing regions
across the world are also pressuring prices, traders said.

U.S. Department of Agriculture data on Monday showed that 94
percent of cotton crops were planted in the United States by the
week ended June 18, slightly up from 92 percent in the previous
week. It rated 61 percent of the U.S. cotton crop in good to
excellent condition, compared with 66 percent a week ago.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Cindy weakened slightly on
Wednesday afternoon as it headed toward landfall on the
Texas-Louisiana border, but it still threatened to bring flash
floods from Texas to Florida, according to the National
Hurricane Center.

"Looks like we have got a good shot of some rains in west
Texas and that should help the cotton," Moss said.

Total futures market volume rose by 3,742 to 26,167 lots.

Data showed total open interest fell 1,576 to 206,774 contracts
in the previous session.

The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index , which
tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.32 percent.

Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of
June 20 totaled 483,106 480-lb bales, up from 480,461 in the
previous session.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie
Adler)