NEW YORK, April 12: Cotton futures settled easier on Friday in a session featuring spread trade and fiber contracts will again depend on the performance of other commodity markets for direction next week, brokers said.

The ICE Futures May cotton contract dropped 0.59 cent to end at 74.16 cents per lb, trading from 73.65 to 74.77 cents. It was an inside day as the range held within Thursday’s 73.14 to 75.73 band.

New-crop December cotton fell 0.32 cent to 85.08 cents, dealing from 84.25 to 85.28 cents which was likewise within the previous session’s range of 83.50 to 86.15 cents.

Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for First Capitol Group in Atlanta, Georgia.

She said most of the running in cotton has been on trades on the difference between the spot month and back months. Investors were also moving positions out of the May contract with first notice for deliveries due in less than two weeks.

Cotton had risen for the most part during the week on investor fund buying which hoisted up other commodity markets as well, traders said.

Volume traded in the cotton market on Thursday was at 42,749 lots, with open interest in the market up 15 lots to 269,176 contracts as of April 10, exchange data showed.—Reuters