NEW YORK, March 23: NYCE cotton futures ended easier on Friday as the market came off after the technical buying which boosted prices to an 8-month high faded and trade sales sent fibre prices slithering into negative territory.

“The fund and spec buying dried up,” Jobe Moss of brokers and merchants MCM Inc. in Lubbock, Texas, said.

Key May cotton slid 0.61 cent to settle at 39.20 cents a lb, in the bottom half of its 39.05-40.19 trading band.

Thursday, the contract jumped 0.86 cent to end at 39.81 cents in the best close for cotton on a spot continuation basis since Aug 9, 2001, when the contract last traded over 40 cents.

July fell 0.51 cent to end at 40.71 cents. Distant month posted losses of between 0.20-0.50 cent.

Cotton prices had finally managed to barrel past the 39 cents barrier this week. The spot cotton contract had been trading from 34-39 cents since November 2001 when futures rebounded from falls to near 30-year lows in October.

The cotton market has been severely mauled by poor demand, bumper supplies and the recessionary impact of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States, shoving prices of the then front December contract to a lifetime low of 28.20 cents.

Mike Stevens of Swiss Financial Services in Mandeville, Louisiana, said a wave of speculative and fund buying hoisted the market above the psychological target of 40 cents shortly after trading opened on Friday.

But the impetus for a further advance stalled and cotton consequently started easing, floor sources said.

Trade selling then further deflated futures, with Cargill said to be a noted seller of around 1,000 lots in the market, floor brokers said.

John Flanagan, president of brokers Flanagan Trading Corp. in North Carolina, said though that there was no real solid push to get cotton under 39 cents, basis May.

Technicians said they believe the May cotton contract would still need to surmount resistance at 40 cents, with the next target at 40.50 cents. Support would be at the session low of 39.05 cents and in layers down to 36.80 cents.

Floor sources said estimated final volume at 14,000 lots, compared to Thursday’s count of 14,586 lots. Open interest rose 1,001 lots to 64,101 lots as of March 21.—Reuters