Benchmark US cotton futures rose 1.97 cent on Friday to close at $1.4481 per lb, finishing an historic year when prices reached their highest in a century and a half, with a yearly gain of 91.50 percent. While cotton was off its peak, the outlook for 2011 remained bullish with stocks still tight, strong demand from top consumer China and buying by investment funds that view cotton as undervalued.
Cotton topped out near $1.60/lb on December 21, a level historians said was last seen at the height of the US Civil War in the 1860s, when the Confederacy hoped to use its monopoly on cotton output to win recognition from European powers.