NEW YORK, Feb 21: US cotton lost almost two per cent to close down a second straight session on Friday as a weak stock market and economy mattered more to investors in the industrial commodity than a jump in weekly exports.

The new benchmark contract for US cotton, May, settled down 0.81 cent at 44.10 cents per lb, trading from 45.40 to 43.91 cents.

March cotton, the market’s previous benchmark, finished 0.39 cent down at 43.03 cents a lb.

“We had friendly trade data today but cotton again became a victim of the stock market,” said Keith Brown, principal at cotton traders Keith Brown and Co. in Moultrie, Georgia.

Wall Street’s key stocks index, the Dow Jones industrial average, closed at a more than six-year low on fear that the government may end up nationalising some failing US banks if a rescue plan was not implemented on time.

“Cotton is an industrial commodity like copper and the depressing stock market and global economy are suffocating demand for everything, from rugs to new home wiring,” Brown said.

Weekly export sales of US cotton stood at just over 435,000 bales of cotton, up from the previous figure of over 109,000, data showed.—Reuters