NEW YORK: ICE cotton futures fell on Monday pressured by weakness across grain markets and forecasts for rainfall in the top-producing West Texas region.

Cotton contracts for July fell 0.23 cent, or 0.3% to 82.59 cents per lb by 12:59 p.m. EDT (1659 GMT). It traded within a range of 82.12 and 82.93 cents a lb.

“It appears, looking at weather patterns (in southern United States), that things are improving and we’ll be okay for now,” said Sid Love, commodity trading adviser at Kansas-based Sid Love Consulting, adding that weaker grain prices also likely drove the market lower.

Chicago wheat futures dropped to their lowest in more than a month and corn and soyabean also fell, dampening sentiment.

Cotton could lose some acreage to soybeans and corn, which are at attractive levels, and if that helps to drive ending stocks lower, that should be friendly to the market, Love said, noting that demand also remained strong.

Market participants now await a weekly crop progress report from the US Department of Agriculture due later in the day.

Speculators cut net long positions in cotton futures by 7,611 contracts to 49,279 in week to May 18, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday.

Total futures market volume fell by 18,257 to 11,248 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 420 to 221,693 contracts in the previous session.

Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of May 21 totalled 131,061 480-lb bales, up from 122,987 in the previous session.