NYCE cotton futures settled at eight-day highs Thursday on trade and technical buying and a lack of selling in another light-volume session, dealers said.
Active July cotton rose 1.21 cents to 61.75 cents a lb, near the top of a 60.55-61.80 cent range and the highest close since April 28. Spot May gained 1.82 cents to 63.75 cents. The back months went up 0.10 to 0.53 cent.
Trade buying was the main feature after cotton weathered an morning lull without much selling, drawing in technical buying once the July contract broke above 61.25 cent resistance.
"It became apparent early that the market was sold out - it didn't have any selling power left and it started working its way up," said Mike Stevens of Swiss Financial Services in Mandeville, Louisiana.
"The speculative community had its shorts priced in cotton last week and just didn't have any more selling to do," he added. "The trade was there ready to buy it, and options were friendly all day long. But volume was light."
Overall, dealers view the market as consolidating above recent lows ahead of planted acres numbers expected in June.
Cotton prices slumped to 18-month lows last Thursday, touching 56.65 cents in July futures, on worries over ample supply and uncertain demand.
Thursday, USDA reported in its weekly export sales data total sales of 156,700 running bales, up from last week's 93,500. Shipments at 281,000 RB were below last week's 351,000 and 29 percent below the four-week average.
"Today's export sales were better than expected and shipments were as expected," Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp said, "and this is supportive to cotton futures."
Volume was estimated at 3,604 contracts in futures, against Tuesday's total of 4,240. Open interest in cotton futures fell 16 lots to 84,848 contracts.