"What is weighing on cotton is the realization that there is no super big threat to the crop from Hurricane Dorian," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group in Chicago. Dorian weakened early in the day to a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, with maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour (175 kph), according to the US National Hurricane Center. The lack of progress in trade negotiations between the United States and China was part of the equation as well, Scoville said.

"We have a lot of cotton harvested, we have lost the biggest buyer (China) and the other international buyers are also not buying for geo-political reasons." Prices for the natural fiber have suffered drastically due to the long trade dispute between Washington and Beijing, causing the cotton contract to fall more than 21% so far this year. Speculators increased their net short position in cotton by 1,980 contracts to 49,563 contracts, the data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday.

Also hurting cotton prices was a stronger dollar, which climbed to its highest level in over two years against a basket of currencies, casting a cloud over demand for US cotton from international markets. Total futures market volume rose by 11,498 to 28,777 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 692 to 222,128 contracts in the previous session.