NY cotton ends at 3-1/2 month low on spec sales

NY cotton ends at 3-1/2 month low on spec sales

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* Market falls for 4th consecutive session
* Cotton trade awaits USDA supply/demand report Thursday

NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Cotton futures finished down and
at a 3-1/2 month low Monday, falling for the fourth straight
session on speculative sales, with the trade awaiting release of
a government crop report later in the week, analysts said.
July cotton on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange dropped
1.32 cents, or 1.5 percent, to settle at 86.67 cents per lb,
trading from 86.10 to 88.42 cents.
It was the lowest close for the second-position cotton
contract since late December 2011, according to Thomson Reuters
data.
New-crop December lost 1.07 cents to end at 84.73
cents after ranging from 84.26 to 86 cents.
"We're waiting on the supply/demand numbers," said Keith
Brown, president of commodity firm Keith Brown and Co in
Moultrie, Georgia.
Traders said fears over poll results in France and Greece,
possibly rekindling the euro zone debt crisis, appeared to have
been taken in stride by players in cotton.
"There's no panic, but the tone is clearly weak," one said.
Traders and players awaited USDA's vital supply/demand
report, which accounts for the first estimate of market
conditions in the coming 2012/13 marketing season (August/July).
It will be released Thursday at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).
Monday's estimated volume was just under 16,500 lots, about
a third below the 30-day norm, according to Thomson Reuters
data.
Open interest stood at 183,714 lots as of May 4, ICE Futures
U.S. exchange data showed.

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