NEW YORK, May 4 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures finished sharply lower
Wednesday on investment fund sales as the market got hit by a
commodity-wide sell-off that could spill into the days ahead, analysts
said.

The catalyst for the sell-off was the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index ,
a global benchmark for commodities, falling almost 1 percent for a
second day in a row on Wednesday, after a sell-off in oil and most raw
materials.

'It is like the toppling of dominoes,' said Mike Stevens, an
independent cotton analyst in Louisiana. 'Certainly, the momentum is with
the bears.'

The key July cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S. fell its 6-cent
daily limit to settle at $1.5151 per lb, with the day's top at $1.5723.
The new-crop December cotton futures lost 2.78 cents to close at
$1.2559 cents per lb.

Volume traded stood at almost 9,200 lots, almost two-thirds below the
30-day norm, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.

Despite Tuesday's surge in values, open interest dropped to 149,384
lots that day to mark its lowest level since October 2009, data from ICE
Futures U.S. showed.

Open interest is normally seen as an indicator of investor interest in
the market and analysts feel the falling level of such interest in cotton
futures seem to indicate that investors appetite for cotton is flagging.

Poor U.S. economic data and doubts over global economic health
undermined cotton, analysts said.

The market will now look toward the weekly export sales report from the
U.S. Agriculture Department to gauge demand for the fiber.

Volume amounted to 14,166 lots as of May 3, up from the prior tally of
12,623 lots, ICE Futures U.S. data showed.