New York cotton ends tad lower

The benchmark NYCE cotton contract fell to an 18-month low on Thursday before steadying to end down only slightly in technical trade.
Dealers said the market was still rattled by worries that Chinese demand for commodities will fall after Beijing ordered some small banks to stop lending for several days on Thursday.
Frank Weathersby, a futures broker at Affinity Trading in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, blamed Thursday's shakeout on follow through from comments made Wednesday by China's premier about how his nation going to slow the economy down a little so it doesn't overheat.
Deliveries were starting to peter out in spot May cotton, which ended up 0.32 cent at 60.32 cents a lb.
Active July settled 0.25 cent lower at 59.38, trading from 59.95 to 56.65, the contract's cheapest since mid October 2002 when it hit 56.60. Dealers said the market was very volatile.
"If you look at technical reasons, on a closing basis it made a double bottom," Weathersby said. "It looks like a great place for it to turn up. Key support would be today's low."
Back months finished down 1.75 to down 3.00 cents.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday said China needs "very forceful" measures to cool its fast-growing economy.
Chinese cotton crops were devastated by heavy rains last year, turning the country into a net importer. China's big purchases of cotton in 2003 lifted prices to their highest level since late 1995.
The USDA reported in its weekly export sales data Thursday total cotton sales of 93,500 running bales, down sharply from last week's 390,000.
That included net upland sales of 48,200 and sales of 45,300 for delivery in 2004/05 and was worse than the 100,000-150,000 combined expected by traders.
Export shipments were 351,000 RB, compared to the previous week's 219,000 and were at the top of the expected 300,000 to 350,000 bales.
"The exports didn't make any difference, the domestic consumption didn't make and difference. The only thing that made any difference was the follow-through selling from yesterday and the technical weakness," said Mike Stevens at Swiss Financial Services in Mandeville, Louisiana.
"It was margin call selling and options had a tremendous influence both ways."