NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) – ICE cotton futures rose in light volume on Tuesday, 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.

“ItΆs an empty market; thereΆs no trading friction between prices,” said Ron Lawson, a partner at commodity investment firm Logic Advisors in Sonoma, California, noting that the price remained in the middle of a tight trading range. “ItΆs as quiet and dead as weΆve seen it in several years.”

December cotton on ICE Futures U.S. CTc1 settled up by 0.21 cent on Tuesday, a 0.3 percent gain, at 62.34 cents per pound. It traded within a range of 62.18 and 63.18 cents.

Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as of Oct. 26 totaled 45,586 480-lb bales, up from 44,141 in the previous session.

The dollar index .DXY was up 0.05 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index .TRJCRB , which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.49 percent.

The Relative Strength Index in the most active contract CTc1 rose to 47.848.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by James Dalgleish)