* Most-active Dec cotton up in biggest gain in 2 weeks
* Trading volumes paltry, below half of 30-day average
NEW YORK, Oct 29 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures rose in
thin trading on Monday, with players sidelined by the vacuum in
activity on Wall Street and other key financial markets due to
Hurricane Sandy.
The most-actively traded December cotton contract on ICE
Futures U.S. settled up 0.19 cents, or 0.3 percent, at
72.61 cents a lb.
It was the biggest percentage gain in nearly two weeks in a
market that had come under selling pressure after rallying
earlier this month on concerns of a supply squeeze in the
physical market.
Trading volumes were paltry, standing below 9,800 lots
versus the 30-day average of 21,905, preliminary data from
Thomson Reuters showed.
"With the stock market shut and everyone's attention on
Sandy, cotton was hardly doing anything much today," said Sharon
Johnson, senior cotton specialist at Knight Futures.
Sandy, a mammoth storm lashing the U.S. East Coast, caused
the first weather-related stock market closure in 27 years. It
also shut down schools, businesses and government departments;
halted public transport and forced hundreds of thousands in the
most densely populated U.S. region to seek higher ground.
Fears of a supply squeeze earlier this month prompted those
short on cotton to run for cover, pushing prices close to 80
cents a lb, their loftiest level since mid-June.
Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday
showed the speculative net long at just under 24,000 lots, the
market's largest net long since September 2011.
The net long position rose despite December cotton losing 6
percent of its price last week.