NEW YORK, Nov 10: NY cotton futures charged to a five-week peak on Friday as traders focused on brisk sales by US exporters and bet slack cotton demand will start to improve with recent low prices for the textile.

Traders said the market rejected Friday’s somewhat bearish USDA production and supply/demand data and went on snapping up affordable cotton futures before the weekend.

I think the bearishness was already factored into the market, and the fact that the USDA report was not any worse than we thought allowed cotton prices to continue to the upside, said one West Coast broker.

Cotton hit a near 30-year trough in October, stifled by soft demand, bumper crops and economic weakness exacerbated by the Sept. 11 plane attacks on US landmarks. But all-around buying by locals, speculators and funds boosted prices this week.

You’ve got 29-year lows driving this market as well as some indications that next year, the crop is going to be smaller, one broker said.

Key December cotton settled at its highest close since Oct. 5, rising 0.63 cent to 32.78 cents a lb, after moving between 32.00 and 32.85 cents.

Second position March climbed 0.52 cent to close at 34.60 cents, trading from 33.90-34.70 cents.

USDA lowered world cotton consumption to 91.64 (480-lb) million bales from last month’s estimate of 92.08 million and raised world ending stocks to 44.38 million bales against 43.26 million, making the stocks-to-use ratio closer to a burdensome 50 per cent.

But the USDA raised its forecast of US cotton exports to 9.4 million bales from 9.0 million last month and even trimmed US ending stocks to 8.7 million from 8.8 million.

Support in the December cotton contract was pegged by Flanagan Trading at 32 and 31.50 cents while resistance would be at 33 cents. Volume for cotton on Thursday reached 12,781 lots.—Reuters