NEW YORK: ICE cotton futures fell to their lowest in a week on Wednesday, on expectations of small showers in West Texas, the top US producing region, and better weather in India, the world’s largest cotton producer.

“Everybody is watching western India and western Texas right now, these are two weather hotspots at the moment,” said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi.

The prices of the natural fibre factored in selling by farmers, said Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia.

“They were locking in some profits,” Brown added.

The market also awaited weekly export sales data from the United States on Thursday.

The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 0.4 cent, or 0.54 percent, at 73.55 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 73.22 and 74.78 cents a lb.

The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 0.88 percent.—Reuters