Cotton futures finished lower Friday on a steady barrage of speculative sales while a monthly government crop report was a non-factor for the market, analysts said. The New York Board of Trade's December cotton contract fell 0.75 cent to finish at 49 cents a lb, dealing from 48.90 to 50.25 cents.
For the contract, it was the lowest close since trading around 48.80 cents in early February. March dropped 0.63 to 51.12 cents.
The rest declined 0.07 to 0.80 cent. "We're oversold, but it looks like we're going to get more oversold," said Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for First Capitol Group in Roswell, Georgia.
Analysts said speculative funds apparently wanted to get short in cotton and the weak finish may spark further selling next week.
Fundamentally, the trade was not entirely taken aback at the figures in the US Department of Agriculture's monthly supply/demand report.
USDA said upped its estimate of world cotton production in 2005/06 to 109.79 million (480-lb) bales from 108.60 million last month. World consumption was at 112.02 million bales from 111.76 and ending stocks to 49.81 million from 48.95 million bales.
USDA estimated US cotton production at 21.29 million bales, from 19.8 million, raised US cotton exports to 15 million from 14.5 million and increase ending stocks to 7.0 million versus 6.7 million bales.
"The market had done a good job of discounting the report," said Mike Stevens of brokers SFS Futures Inc in Mandeville, Louisiana.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp sees resistance in the December contract at 49.10 and 49.80 cents, with support pegged at 48.65 and 48 cents.
Floor dealers said estimated final volume reached 14,000 lots, from the previous 9,464 lots. Open interest rose 1,017 lots to 96,490 lots as of August 11.