NEW YORK, May 31: New York cotton finished at a fresh 3-week low on Friday due to steady fund selling and end-of-the-month liquidation in the market, analysts said.

Key July cotton lost 0.60 cent to close at 50.58 cents a lb, trading from 50.50-51.40 cents. On a spot basis, it was the lowest close for cotton since finishing at 49.01 cents on May 8.

December fell 0.54 to 54.93 cents. Except for one contract, the rest declined 0.20-0.55 cent.

Alan Feild of brokerage iamhedged.com in Memphis, Tennessee, said futures tracked lower because of “fund selling and end-of-the-month type” dumping of positions by market players.

Frank Weathersby of brokerage Affinity Trading in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, said the market failed to approach the Thursday low of 50 cents, basis July, and saw some trade and speculative buying.

Analysts said there was also some aggressive put selling by several major merchants and trade houses which added to the pressure felt by futures.

Separately, some analysts said they were encouraged by the weekly USDA export sales report issued earlier on Friday.

USDA said combined old crop and new crop US upland cotton sales reached 159,200 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs), with the old crop number standing at 77,500 RBs. Shipments hit 273,100 RBs, up 2.0 per cent from the previous week.

Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp. in North Carolina said the level of shipments raises expectations that total shipments for the year will exceed the current USDA projection of US cotton exports in 2002/03 hitting 11 million (480-lb) bales.

Technicians said they believe support in the July contract would be at the Thursday low of 50 cents, with resistance at 51.80 and 52.25 cents.

Final estimated volume reached 14,000 lots, down from the prior tally of 16,354 lots. Total open interest in the cotton market rose 1,509 contracts to 73,991 lots as of May 29.—Reuters