NEW YORK, Oct 11: NY cotton futures finished higher Wednesday on local buying and profit-taking by players who had shoved fiber prices down to 15-year lows, although operators were not confident the recovery can be sustained.

The bears are taking a moment calculating how much money they’ve made, Jobe Moss of brokers and merchants MCM Inc. in Lubbock, Texas. It’s just consolidating.

December cotton climbed 0.67 cent to close at 32.32 cents a lb, trading between 31.90-32.35 cents. March added 0.46 cent to end at 33.88 cents. Back months gained 0.25-0.38 cent.

Cotton gapped higher at the start and proceeded to make steady gains when speculative fund accounts who had been driving futures south decided to back away from the market, brokers said.

It held support and we did not see the kind of aggressive trade or option selling we’ve seen recently, a broker in the US Southeast said.

There was supposed to be some option put selling by a major merchant from Memphis, but it was not on the scale seen recently in the market, traders said.

Analysts said cotton futures may also be taking a breather in front of the monthly USDA production report due out on Friday.

Analysts said the trade would be watching for any decline in the USDA’s estimate of world cotton consumption and any spike in world cotton ending stocks for 2001/02.

In its September production data, USDA lowered its estimate of world cotton consumption to 92.55 million (480-lb) bales from the previous month’s 92.60 while raising world ending stocks to 42.73 million against 41.53 million bales.

On another matter, the Cotlook A index seen by the trade as an indicator of global cotton demand fell by 0.45 cent to 37.55 cents.

Technicians said major support for the December cotton contract would be the psychological target of 30 cents, then 29.50 and even 27.80 cents. Resistance in the contract was seen at 32 and in layers up to 35 cents.

Dealers estimated final volume traded at around 7,500 lots, compared with the previous tally of 8,993 lots.—Reuters