NYCE cotton futures finished mixed Wednesday, with light speculative selling in nearby months offset by trade buying in all the market's contracts, analysts said.
May cotton shed 0.71 cent to conclude at 70.02 cents a lb, moving from 68.70 to 71.40. July fell 0.66 to 71.28. Except for two contracts, the rest rose 0.12 to 0.37.
"They said some trade buying came in late," said Sharon Johnson, cotton expert at Frank Schneider and Co. Inc. in Atlanta.
An absence of early support punished cotton as automatic sell-orders below levels of support at 69 cents, basis the May contract, were activated, brokers said.
Speculative accounts kept cotton under pressure although the trade buying picked up in intensity going into the close of trade, they said.
Some analysts said trade and commercial accounts may be backing away from propping up cotton in an attempt to spark interest from consumers, with most paying close attention to any move by China to step up cotton purchases in the market.
Looking toward the weekly USDA export sales report, cotton brokers said US net upland cotton sales will probably range from 150,000 to 200,000 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each), versus 198,800 RBs in last week's report.
Shipments should hover from 200,000 to 250,000 RBs, down from last week's 271,800 RBs, as most in the trade wait for a governmental marketing program which gives US exporters funds to ship American cotton overseas.
"Those numbers are in the ball park," a broker in the south-eastern United States said when asked about the figures.
As of the last USDA weekly export sales data, China has bought 4.09 million RBs of US upland cotton in the 2003/04 marketing year (August/July), against purchases of 1.02 million RBs at this time last year.
Analysts feel resistance for the May contract would be at 70.50 and 71 cents, with support at 69.80 and 69.00 cents.
Floor traders said estimated final volume reached 18,000 lots, against the prior count of 11,369 lots. Open interest in the cotton market rose 996 lots to 78,350 as of March 2.