Cotton futures put in a mixed performance last week as switch activity intensified with the onset of index-fund rolling of positions from the front delivery.

Spot March lost 138 points for the week ended Thursday, settling at 94.21 cents after falling to 92.69 cents, its lowest print since Jan. 3. It rallied after nearing a support point marked by a 50 percent correction (91.91) of its 15.12-cent surge from the December low to the January high and closed back above a Fibonacci 38.2 percent retracement (93.69).

The May delivery dipped 55 points to close at 95.49 cents, July edged up 19 points to 96.56 cents and new-crop December gained 81 points to 95.06 cents. The March-May switch appeared to find support around a 150-point difference.

The Rogers fund opened the index-trader rolling on Monday, Deutsche Bank followed Wednesday and the Goldman Sachs roll will begin Tuesday, analysts said. First notice day for March deliveries is Feb. 23.

Cash trading slowed to 11,872 bales from 43,970 bales the previous week. Prices fell to an average of 80.66 cents from 87.29 cents, with premiums over loan repayment rates falling to 29.31 cents from 34.27 cents. Daily average prices ranged from 77.22 cents to 83.51 cents.

Upbeat global manufacturing data helped to support futures. Factory activity quickened in China, the United States and Germany in January, and the three manufacturing superpowers drove gains in global output even as Europe struggled with fallout from its festering debt crisis.

March ended January with a 145-point, or 1.6 percent, gain for the month after managing a gain of about 1 percent in December on the heels of a 10 percent loss in November.

Commodities posted the sectorΆs first monthly rise since October. The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index rose 2.3 percent after declines in November and December.

The volatile dollar could be a key factor in the sectorΆs February performance, some analysts say. Traders will keep an eye out for whether or not the Federal Reserve will embark on a third round of government bond buying or quantitative easing, known on Wall Street as QE3.

Such monetary easing by the central bank would be expected to weaken the dollar and strengthen commodity prices. Commodities got a big boost from QE2, the FedΆs $600 billion bond-buying program that ended in June.

The cotton market absorbed weekly USDA data showing net U.S. all-cotton export sales cancellations jumped to an unexpectedly large 152,400 running bales for delivery this season.

Commitments of 10.489 million running bales still totaled 98 percent of the USDA export forecast for the marketing year ending July 31. China canceled a net 182,600 bales of upland but its all-cotton bookings of 5.674 million running bales still amounted to 54 percent of the cumulative sales to all destinations.

All-cotton shipments hit a marketing-year high of 386,700 running bales. This topped the average of 262,200 running bales a week now needed to achieve the estimate. Exports for the season of 3.853 million running bales were 36 percent of the forecast.

Looking ahead, the USDA will update its U.S. and world 2011-12 supply-demand estimates Thursday, and the National Cotton Council will release results of its annual planting intentions survey Saturday at the industrywide convention in Fort Worth.

Some veteran trade analysts believe USDA has underestimated world consumption at 109.99 million bales. This would be the lowest since 2004-05 and below that of 2008-09 when consumption fell 11 percent from the previous year to 110.06 million bales in the wake of the financial crisis.

With ChinaΆs internal cotton prices remaining 35 to 40 cents above the Cotlook A Index of world values, the yarn sector in many parts of the world is reported to have experienced a revival.

Under the national reserve price umbrella, ChinaΆs demand has been keen for yarn as well as for cotton. While cotton is subject to import quotas, yarn is not, an analyst noted, and there have been reports of sizable yarn business between Asian markets and China.

The China Cotton Index advanced to 19,338 yuan per metric ton or the equivalent of 138.78 cents per pound, a premium of 37.33 cents over the widely followed index of world values.

On the crop scene, U.S. upland cotton classing slowed to 115,402 running bales for the week ended Jan. 26 to bring the seasonΆs total to 13,921,423. Cotton tenderable on futures contracts fell to 52.3 percent for the week and eased to 66.6 percent for the season.

Pima classing of 43,595 running bales brought the total of extra long staple cotton for the season to 718,455 bales and boosted the all-cotton count to 14,639,878 running bales. This is about 16 percent behind year-ago classing of 17,367,415 running bales.

The Visalia classing office in California graded 53,009 bales of upland for the week and all the Pima, accounting for about 61 percent of the weekΆs national all-cotton total of 158,997 running bales. Visalia has continued a two-shift operation to keep up with receipts.

In statistical 480-pound bales, all-cotton classing climbed to a little over 15 million, around 96 percent of USDAΆs January estimate. A year ago, classing totaled around 99 percent of the final output.

A final report on the 2011-12 production from USDAΆs National Agricultural Statistics Service isnΆt expected until May, though ginning data set for release Thursday will provide fresh clues.

Meanwhile, speculators boosted their net long cotton futures position by 1.3 percentage points to 10.5 percent of the open interest during the week ended Jan. 27. They added 1,098 longs and covered 2,070 shorts, raising their net longs by 3,168 lots to 17,624.

Open interest continued to advance going into ThursdayΆs session, rising 11,568 lots from a week earlier to 178,051, largest since April 18.