NEW YORK: Cotton futures ended fractionally higher Friday, rising for the sixth straight session as players mulled Europe's initiatives to tackle its regional debt crisis, analysts said.
The key December cotton contract on ICE Futures US added 0.05 cent to close at $1.0437 per lb, dealing from $1.0259 to $1.0505. It was the highest settlement for spot cotton in six weeks.
Total volume traded Friday hit over 23,300 lots, some two-thirds over the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data showed.
Sharon Johnson, senior cotton analyst at commodity brokerage Penson Futures in Atlanta, said a little profit-taking pushed cotton lower before it recovered late.
Cotton seemed to be pausing in the same way as global stocks, with US and European shares taking a breather after a strong rally built on a long-awaited euro zone rescue deal as investor confidence remained a bit shaky.
The same type of action and market skepticism about the euro deal was seen in the oil market while the grains complex was mixed.
Johnson said most in the cotton trade saw the European deal as a start to get the debt crisis behind them. "They're closer to making the ugly decisions to get out of hock," she said.
Technically, dealers said the December contract remained above the 50-day moving average around $1.034.
Open interest in cotton, usually taken as an indicator of investor exposure in cotton, stood at 160,896 lots as of Oct 27, its highest level since June 9, exchange data showed.
Total volume traded Thursday in the cotton market reached 25,566 lots, down from the previous tally of 13,764 lots, ICE futures US data reported.
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