950830

Cotton prices mixed

NEW YORK: New York cotton futures were mixed at midday on light speculative selling, traders said.

"We had some trade buying that brought the market up to unchanged early on and then light spec selling drove it down," one trader said.

The trader described volume as "very thin.

The market is consolidating, there's nothing new fundamentally," Judith Ganes and analyst with Merrill Lynch, said.

Most active December was at 82.90 cents a lb, up 0.37 cents, at 1145 EDT.

Spot October was at 83.60, off 0.15, while next year's March contract was at 84.00, up 0.52.-Reuter