New York, Oct 27 - ICE Futures US cotton ended up marginally Friday after a steady session of fund buying and options-related trade, analysts said. December contracts settled 24 points higher at 64.63 cents a pound, and March ended up 27 points at 69.15 cents. Initially, cotton received strength from outside markets such as precious metals, but there was less follow-through buying near the close as crude oil pared gains, said Sharon Johnson, an analyst at First Capitol Group in Atlanta. Considerable strength also came from the purchase of an estimated 2,500 March 64-cent calls, said Alan Feild, president of Iamhedged.com, a Memphis brokerage firm. The market has taken notice of talk that India and Pakistan may have a smaller cotton crop than projected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Feild. This would lead the countries to import more cotton and export less to China, a deficit that could be filled by U.S. cotton. In other cotton news, Tanzania's state-run cotton body plans to lift annual cotton output to 1.5 million 181-kilogram bales from the current 700,000-bale average by 2010, the country's cotton board said in a report obtained by Dow Jones Newswires. In the US, freezing temperatures in northwestern Texas are not believed to have damaged the crop. New crop condition data will be released Monday afternoon by the USDA. ICE daily cotton stocks were increased by 3,659 to total 569,245 Thursday, with 31,549 awaiting review. Volume was estimated at 32,398 contracts on the screen and 5,165 on the floor. In options, 10,736 call and 691 puts were purchased. Open interest grew by 1,469 positions Thursday, with traders selling 1,367 December and buying 1,988 March.

[Source: Dow Jones Newswire]