NEW YORK, March 9: NY cotton futures settled easier on Friday on trade pressure and local long liquidation as the market slipped from Thursday’s climb up a two-month peak.

Key May closed down 0.62 cent at 37.83 cents a lb, near the bottom of its 37.80-38.60 trading band.

On Thursday, May surged 1.97 cents or 5.4 per cent to close at 38.45 cents. On a spot basis, that equaled the 2002 high posted on Jan 8 by the then front contract.

July fell 0.53 cent to settle at 39.45 cents. Except for one contract, the rest retreated 0.60-0.65 cent.

There was trade selling to knock it down, Jobe Moss of brokers and merchants MCM Inc. in Lubbock, Texas, said.

Speculative buying led the market back and the locals jumped in as well, but when the small speculators got overly long in cotton, long liquidation dragged fiber prices south going into the close, floor sources and cotton brokers said.

We had very good action all around. The trade has been a great seller and when the specs tried to come back, the trade pushed the market lower. The locals then ran out on cotton because they were too long in futures, one said.

Analysts said the market shrugged off the monthly USDA production report and is now turning its attention to the debate on the Farm Bill in Congress and toward the annual USDA planting intentions data due out on March 28.

Work on the Farm Bill has bogged down in increasing political jockeying in a year when control of the US Congress is expected to be fiercely contested by the Democrat and Republican parties.

It’s easier to predict cotton prices than Farm (Bill) politics, Frank Weathersby of brokers Affinity Trading in Destin, Florida, told Reuters.

From a technical viewpoint, analysts said the next target for the May cotton contract would be 39 and then 40 cents. Support would be at the Thursday low of 36.80 cents.

Realistically, it looks very tough to do so, she said, adding farmers who had parked more than 5.00 million (480-lb) bales in government loan programmes would be sorely tested to sell cotton at those levels.

Estimated final volume stood at 10,000 lots, against the previous count of 18,917 lots. Open interest fell 565 lots to 62,903 lots as of March 7.— Reuters