NEW YORK, July 12: NYCE cotton futures finished slightly firmer on Friday on light speculative buying as most of the trade appears to have easily absorbed a pair of friendly USDA reports, analysts said.

December cotton rose 0.04 cent to close at 61.88 cents a lb, trading 61.69-62.30 cents. Except for two contracts, the rest were flat to 0.25 cent firmer.

“Virtually everyone was already anticipating a bullish (USDA) report. The early buying was easily absorbed by trade selling,” said Mike Stevens of Swiss Financial Services in Mandeville, Louisiana.

Another dealer said the market’s recent robust advance was pretty much in anticipation of the bullish USDA numbers.

USDA pegged US 2003/04 cotton production at 16.6 million (480-lb) bales from 17.2 million in its June report. The number was in the upper end of a Reuters survey which forecast US output between 16.55-16.61 million bales.

The estimate for US cotton ending stocks was sliced to 3.9 million bales against 4.5 million last month.

USDA cut its forecast for world cotton ending stocks in 2003/04 to 32.96 million bales from 33.14 million, slashed world output to 94.84 million from 95.50 million and raised global consumption to 99.14 million from 99 million.—Reuters