NEW YORK, Dec 21: NY cotton settled up and at its highest in a month Friday as aggressive speculative buying into stops powered the spot March contract past tough topside resistance at the 51-cent barrier.

The local buying ran us up and we hit stops which pushed it on up, said Frank Weathersby of brokers Affinity Trading in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

March cotton jumped 1.13 cents to finish at 51.45 cents a lb, near the top of its 50.32-51.60 band. It was the highest close for the contract since mid-Nov.

Advances in other months were far more modest. Second-position May added 0.51 cent to 54.76 cents. The rest went up 0.25-0.40 cent.

Early business was distinctly lackluster, with early local liquidation offset by local buying back of shorts, brokers said.

For a while there, you had to wonder if the market was open at all, a broker in the US South said. It seemed like everyone was on holiday mode already and just waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney.

The mood changed going into the last half hour of trade, especially after March raced past 51 cents.

The market will continue to batter the 51-cent mark and will break above it. Look to buy any return to 49 cents. The 53-cent level is marked with a rather large bull’s eye, said the weekly commentary by market analyst O.A. Cleveland.

The market is higher, but I expect to see trades below 50 cents before the final push to the upside is made, he added.

Technicians said resistance in the March cotton contract is still at 51.80 and 52 cents, while support would now be at 50 cents.

Estimated final volume reached 10,000 lots from Thursday’s tally of 6,040 lots.

Open interest stood at 73,878 lots as of Dec 19, down 116 lots from the previous session.—Reuters