NYCE cotton futures finished mixed Tuesday, with most players sidelined to wait out the Lunar New Year festivities this week in top consumer China, dealers said.
March gained 0.55 cent to settle at 75.27 cents a lb, dealing between 73.35 and 75.30 cents. May rose 0.48 to 76.38 cents. Except for one contract, the rest shed 0.25 to 0.30 cent.
"We've continued the sideways mode we've seen for weeks," said Frank Weathersby of brokerage Affinity Trading in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
He said cotton will likely remain choppy since China - heavy buying by which last October catapulted fibre contracts to their highest level since late 1995 - is out of the market because of Lunar New Year celebrations there.
The market took note of news that the State Statistical Bureau said China harvested 4.87 million tonnes of cotton in 2003, down 0.9 percent year-on-year despite an acreage spike of 20 percent.
That would mean roughly a crop of about 22.3 million (480-lb) bales, against the USDA projection of 22 million bales in its monthly supply/demand data.
William Dunavant Jr., chief executive of leading merchant Dunavant Enterprises, told delegates at a cotton industry meeting this month he expected the Chinese to maintain their crop estimate, but he feels the Chinese crop actually stands at 20.7 million bales.
"I think the number is partly discounted by some players because they would want to see the pace of Chinese purchases, which would show how big or small their crop really is," a dealer said.
Early losses from speculative sales were erased when trade and then speculative buying hoisted the market to its highs for the day, brokers said.
Brokerage Flanagan Trading Corp said resistance in the March contract was at 75.90 cents while support was at 74.10 and 73.80 cents.
Floor dealers said estimated final volume reached 12,000 lots, compared with the prior tally of 7,632 lots. Open interest rose 480 lots to 92,497 lots as of January 16.
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