NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures finished
up the daily limit Wednesday on another round of speculative
and fund buying as players eyed release of a government sales
report to gauge demand for the fiber, analysts said.

The cotton market has jumped almost 20 percent since the
middle of January, fueled by robust prices in top consumer
China although the Chinese are stepping away for the Lunar New
Year festivities which get going next month.

The key March cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
rose the 5.00 cent limit to close at $1.6683 per lb, short of
the new record high at $1.6789 set on Tuesday. The low for the
session was at $1.6081.

Total volume stood at 17,100 lots, about 5 percent below
the 30-day norm, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.
'It's more of the same -- spec and fund buying,' said
Sharon Johnson, senior cotton analyst at brokerage Penson
Futures in Atlanta, Georgia.

She said a touch of mill buying also piled into the market
from laggard mills picking up some fiber.

The market derived no inspiration from Chinese cotton
prices. The key September cotton futures on the
Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange was last done at 31,510 yuan per
tonne, down 115 yuan on the day.

Analysts said the market was looking toward the U.S.
Agriculture Department's weekly export sales report to get an
accurate picture of demand for cotton at this time.

Cotton brokers estimate total U.S. cotton sales between
200,000 to 300,000 running bales (RBs, 500-lbs each), against
sales in last week's report of 457,500 RBs.

After the sales report, the market's attention should turn
toward a report on potential U.S. 2011 cotton plantings.

The market will wait for the potential plantings survey by
industry group the National Cotton Council of America. The
results of the survey will be handed out at the group's annual
meeting next week.

A Reuters survey at the Beltwide Cotton conference this
month had forecast U.S. 2011 cotton plantings at around 12.48
million to 12.53 million acres, which would be a 5-year high
and an increase of around 15 percent from last year's 11.04
million acres.