NEW YORK: Cotton futures fell nearly two percent on Thursday after touching their highest level in about a month earlier in the session, dragged down by harvest pressure in the United States and a stronger dollar.

The first-month December cotton contract on ICE Futures hit a session high of 71.79 cents per lb. before settling down at 69.80 cents per lb., their lowest in a week.

“The weather is great and they’ll be harvesting a lot of cotton, so it could be some pre-harvest hedging ahead of the weekend,” said Keith Brown, principal at cotton brokers Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia.

Weekly export sales data showed net upland sales totalled 340,200 running bales (RB) of cotton for the week ended Oct. 13, up 50 percent from the previous week. However, exports were down 16 percent from the previous week at 124,000 RB.

Net sales of Pima, considered to be one of the superior blends of cotton, were down 58 percent from the previous week at 5,100 RB, a marketing-year low.

The December cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled down 1.3 cent, or 1.83 percent, their biggest intra-day percentage loss since Oct. 5, at 69.8 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.95 cents a lb., their lowest since Oct. 13 and 71.79 cents a lb., a peak since Sept. 23.

Total futures market volume rose by 11,801 to 34,927 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 4,179 to 256,940 contracts in the previous session.

The dollar index was up 0.40 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was down 1.04 percent.—Reuters