NEW YORK, March 1: Cotton futures settled sharply higher at a 4-1/3-year high on Friday on aggressive fund buying, dealers said.The funds have been just smoking it. There’s a lot of talk that (May) could go to 85 cents (per lb), one cotton trader said, noting this could happen early next week.

The end of the open-outcry session marked the final pit session for cotton futures contracts trading on ICE Futures US The exchange’s agricultural futures will become fully electronic Monday.

The ICE Futures open-outcry May cotton contract finished up 2.53 cents, or 3.2 per cent, at 81.86 cents per lb, the loftiest settlement for the second position since October 2003. Trades ranged from 79.80 to 82.33 cents.

The new-crop December cotton contract closed up 2.68 at 87.45 cents. The rest climbed 1.50 to 2.68 cents.

The May electronic cotton contract was 2.32 cents higher at 81.65 cents at 3:32 p.m. EST (2032 GMT), spanning 79.33 to 82.33 cents. One deferred contract aside, they all hit lifetime highs.

Open interest in the March contract was down 304 lots at 1,719 lots as of Feb. 28. First delivery date for the contract is Monday.

Open-outcry volume Thursday reached 3,272 lots, while 31,378 lots traded on the screen. Open interest in the cotton market rose 3,005 lots to 296,853 lots as of Feb. 28, exchange data showed.

Speculators in New York-traded cotton widened their net long, or bullish, position by 36 per cent in the week to Feb. 26, when a commodities rally lifted the fiber’s price to 4-1/4-year highs, trade data on Friday showed.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly numbers showed noncommercial investors, or speculators, were net long on 92,331 contracts of U.S. cotton at the close of Feb 26. A week earlier, net speculative longs stood at 67,688 contracts.

—Reuters