New York cotton up on late speculative buying

Cotton futures closed higher Wednesday on a late flurry of speculative buying, though most players were waiting for solid leads to inspire the next move, brokers said. The New York Board of Trade's December cotton contract was last done at 50 cents per lb, up 0.63 cent on the day while dealing from 49.85 to 50.10 cents.
The final settlement price was not immediately available although floor sources said the contract ended at 50.16 cents. March was seen last at 53.40 cents, up 0.40 cent on the day. Traders said it finished at 53.58 cents.
Mike Stevens, an analyst for brokers SFS Futures in Mandeville, Louisiana, said the December contract would need to pierce 50.50 cents or go below the lifetime low of 49.31 cents to generate more volatility in the market.
Stevens said automatic buy orders which would kick the December contract higher were lying in wait at 50.50 cents, but that selling interest would peter out when the contract approached 49.31 cents. Most of the activity was in the difference between the key December contract and the next most active March cotton contracts.
"We had a lot of spread business being done, but that was it. The overall tone of the market was real quiet," one said. On another matter, the market was looking forward to the release of a pair of reports from the US Agriculture Department.
The first would be the USDA's weekly export sales report. Cotton brokers expect total US cotton sales would reach between 100,000 and 200,000 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each) compared with sales last week at 205,500 RBs.
US cotton shipments of previously booked orders were seen reaching 50,000 to 100,000 RBs, from 80,900 RBs last week. The other report would be the USDA's monthly supply/demand report. Stevens said the focus of interest in the data would be on fresh calculations of world production and consumption.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp sees resistance in the December contract at 50.50 cents, with support at 49.30 and 48.75 cents. Floor sources said volume traded hit around 13,000 lots, from the previous count of 8,146 lots. Open interest in the cotton market fell 127 lots to 184,683 lots as of October 3.