US cotton futures ended slightly lower in quiet trade on Thursday, as broad-based losses in agricultural commodities and equities dampened demand expectations for investors in the fibre market. The most-active December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.33 cent at 64.02 cents a lb, retreating after rising to a one-week high at 65.08 cents.

Trading volume in cotton futures was about 15 percent below its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. "Outside markets, commodities and stocks, continue to influence cotton but the heavy spec fund selling that has plagued cotton since early May appears to have let up," said Sharon Johnson, a cotton specialist with KCG Futures in Georgia.

The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index fell 0.3 percent, led by losses in the grains and softs markets. The S&P 500 equities market fell 0.5 percent on worries about rising geopolitical tensions in Iraq and Ukraine. Also weighing on sentiment was an improving outlook for India's second half of its four-month monsoon after some above-average rainfall that is also expected to spill over into next week.

Dealers said the cotton market largely ignored Thursday's US weekly export sales report. The market is correcting upward after a 20 percent slide over the last six weeks to a five-year low at 62.02 cents per lb last week after a bearish US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. The USDA projected that US cotton stockpiles would climb to a six-year high of about 5 million bales by the end of the 2014/15 crop year. The USDA has also forecast that global inventories will swell to a record of nearly 106 million 480-lb bales.