NEW YORK, Jan 5: Cotton futures finished softer on Friday on mild profit-taking as the market extended its pullback after its recent rally and brokers said prices may drift in a range while waiting for leads from an industry conference and a crop report next week.

ICE Futures open-outcry March cotton contract settled off 0.02 cent at 68.69 cents a lb after dealing from 67.80 to 68.70 cents. May lost 0.04 to 70.36 cents.

The ICE March electronic cotton contract was off 0.03 cent at 68.68 cents at 2:47 p.m. EST (1947 GMT) with volume around 10,821 lots.

It’s kind of a minimum setback,” said Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for First Capitol Group in Atlanta, Georgia. I would think we have a good trading range here (for the moment) of around 67.50 to 69.50 cents, basis key March.

The market may wait for some leads from the annual Beltwide cotton conference getting started on Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee, the American Farm Bureau meeting running from January 13 to 16 and the monthly supply/demand report from the US Agriculture Department next Friday.

Cotton suffered some losses at the start of trade, taking its cue from the weaker tone of other commodity markets and a poor set of figures from the weekly USDA export sales data.

USDA said total US cotton sales stood at 68,400 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each), sharply down from the 147,400 RBs in last week’s report.

US cotton shipments of previously booked orders amounted to 183,800 RBs, versus the 185,900 RBs in last week’s report.

The sales were not exactly an inspiration for cotton and there are worries in the market about the kind of demand we may see given the weak state of global economies, one trader said.

Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp. pegged resistance in the March open-outcry contract at 69.30 and 70 cents, with support at 68.60 and 67.40 cents.

Open-outcry cotton volume on Thursday was 4,353 lots with screen trade at 20,453 lots. Open interest in the market rose 1,633 lots to 243,577 lots as of Jan. 3, according to exchange data.

---Reuters