Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Cotton (11805,95.00,0.81%) futures ended sharply higher Thursday, boosted by investment fund buying, while the brokerage said that the recovery of high gas should be driven to buy cotton in the week and next week gains.

March cotton CTH9 up 2.53 cents to close at 48.53 cents a pound, trading range of 45.62-49 cents. This is the week, its highest close since .2008 GMT, the March cotton volume of 10,771. 5 Cotton CTK9 month period rose 2.21 cents to settle at 49.11 cents per pound.

LA SFS Futures analyst Mike Stevens said that in the March futures touched a low of 45.58 cents Wednesday, the market participants have to do more. He pointed out that the March futures closed at 48 cents above the mean that there will be breaking up the kinetic energy of 50 cents. Dealers said that the fundamentals do not support prices, but short-covering at the bottom means that the cotton prices had emerged.

Flanagan Trading brokerage firm estimated that cotton resistance in the 48.95 cents, support for the 48 and 47.15 cents. Exchange data showed Wednesday cotton overall volume reached 10,409. As of January 14, the volume of outstanding contracts rose to 129,553 from 129,592.