NEW YORK, Oct 9: NY cotton futures finished on Monday at a fresh 15-year low on steady trade and option-related sales, with a poor fundamental and technical outlook seen depressing fiber prices further.

December cotton slid to a new lifetime trough of 31.80 cents before ending 1.23 cents weaker at 32.04 cents a lb. The high for the day stood at 33.24 cents.

October fell 0.85 cent to 31.10 cents, having touched a fresh contract low of 30.50 cents.

Back months lost between 0.85 and 1.33 cents.

It’s more fundamental weakness, Keith Brown, president of commodity trading firm Keith Brown and Co. in Moultrie, Georgia, said. Fundamentally, there’s no urgency to buy the market.

Traders said air strikes in Afghanistan had little, if any, impact in the market with some operators saying they should in fact be friendly for cotton futures since hostilities in Central and Southern Asia may disrupt cotton supplies coming from Pakistan and places like Uzbekistan.

Cotton prices have slid to almost daily 15-year lows due to large crops in the US and abroad, ample supplies, soft demand and fears of a recession following attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last Sept. 11.

Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for Frank Schneider and Co. Inc. in Atlanta, said the market ran into more of the same type of selling it saw last Friday and appears likely to test the 30-cent level.

Trade and local pressure dragged the market south, with brokers citing bearish put spreads by a major Memphis, Tennessee-based merchant as another reason why cotton prices suffered further declines.

Another factor for soft cotton prices would be falls in the Cotlook A index, seen by the trade as an indicator of global cotton demand, which eased 0.75 cent to 38.90 cents.

Traders said the market may gradually consolidate around these levels while waiting for the Friday release of the monthly USDA supply/demand report.

They said major support for the December cotton contract is likely at the psychological target of 30 cents. Resistance in the contract was seen at 34 and 35 cents.

Dealers estimated final volume traded at around 9,000 lots, compared with the previous 7,422 lots.—Reuters