U.S. Cotton: Prices Firm into Thursday's Close on Record Weekly Sales

Barchart: Cotton futures closed 2 to 60 points higher across the nearbys, with Dec26 at 83.31 cents (+42 points), Mar27 at 86.06 cents (+41) and Oct26 at 79.51 cents. Crude oil rose about 2.7% and the dollar index firmed. Traders were watching the U.S.-China meeting, which produced no trade announcement, though Treasury Secretary Bessent said this week the two countries are extending their trade truce by two months. USDA's export sales report showed 230,517 RB sold in the week ending September 17, a marketing-year high, led by Mexico (69,800 RB) and Vietnam (51,200 RB), with a further 122,994 RB booked for 2027/28 — 120,000 RB of it to Mexico. Shipments came to 164,704 RB, up 20.03% on the same week last year. The Seam sold 753 bales on Wednesday at 77.45 cents/lb, the Cotlook A Index rose 40 points to 93.25, certified stocks held at 29,556 bales, and the Adjusted World Price fell 283 points to 66.09 cents/lb.
Source: Barchart

U.S. Cotton: Truce Extended to January as Xi and Trump Meet

Calcot (Cindy Walters): December settled at 83.31 cents, a third higher close this week for a cumulative gain of 216 points — modest against the 491 points lost last week and 1,023 over the previous three. Open interest slipped just 59 contracts to 383,957, still the fourth highest ever and still unexplained. Thursday's White House meeting between Xi and Trump covered trade, agriculture, technology and critical minerals, with the two sides having agreed a day earlier to extend the trade truce to January 10; no cotton-specific purchase was announced, though China's commitments to buy U.S. farm products and lower barriers to U.S. agricultural exports were on the table. Treasury yields stayed near multi-year highs, the 10-year reaching 5.15%, its highest since 2007, while crude oil rallied a second day, up 2.7%, and the dollar index closed higher for a fourth straight session, up 2.5% over twelve sessions — a headwind for U.S. exports. December's low held above its 100-day moving average for the first time in six sessions, a start to a recovery but not yet a convincing one. China's State Reserve sold out its 50th auction, taking cumulative sales past 1.75 million bales, of which 57% has been U.S. cotton. The CFTC's on-call report showed sales exceeding purchases for a seventh straight week, after 121 consecutive weeks the other way round.
Source: Calcot

U.S. Cotton: Weekly Export Sales Hit a Marketing-Year High

USDA: Net upland sales for the week ending September 17 totalled 230,500 RB for 2026/27, up sharply from both the previous week and the four-week average, led by Mexico (69,800 RB), Vietnam (51,200 RB), Pakistan (44,500 RB), India (33,300 RB) and Honduras (18,800 RB), against reductions of 4,700 RB for China. New-crop 2027/28 sales reached 123,000 RB, almost all to Mexico (120,000 RB), with smaller volumes to Pakistan and Japan. Upland shipments totalled 164,700 RB, up 16% on the week but 5% below the four-week average, going mainly to Vietnam (49,000 RB), India (32,100 RB), Pakistan (25,700 RB), Mexico (8,900 RB) and Turkey (8,800 RB). Pima sales fell 43% on the week to 4,800 RB, while pima shipments rose sharply to 11,700 RB, led by India and Egypt.
Source: USDA FAS

U.S. Cotton: The Market Hasn't Caught Up to Cotton Yet

PCCA (Abigail Hoelscher, chief economist): Prices have stayed depressed even as the fundamentals quietly improve, and Hoelscher argues the market is steadily becoming healthier than the board suggests. After years in which world production outran consumption and filled warehouses, USDA now expects global use to exceed output. Higher energy costs are making petroleum-based synthetics dearer, and even modest switching back toward cotton translates into meaningful extra world demand. China's reserve sales weigh on prices in the short term, but history suggests the eventual restocking becomes future demand. The disconnect, she argues, is that cotton is not trading on cotton alone: inflation, interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty and large fund flows dominate commodity pricing regardless of what any single crop is doing.
Source: PCCA

Global: What Lifted Cotton from 65 Cents to Nearly 90

Farm Progress: Cotton has climbed from a 65-68 cent range to close to 90 cents by September, a rally driven above all by supply. Global ending stocks are 5 million bales below last year, the lowest since 2011/12, with production down 2.3 million bales in China, 1.5 million in Australia, 700,000 each in the U.S. and Turkey and 300,000 in Brazil. Demand has helped: mill use is put at 123 million bales for 2026/27 against 121 million in 2025/26, the first time in two decades that world consumption exceeds 120 million bales in consecutive seasons. The Iran conflict, which flared again in August after June's ceasefire, pushed speculators from net-short to net-long, and cotton gained 29% from January through August against 16% for corn and 22% for soybeans, while crude oil rose about 51% and dragged polyester costs up with it.
Source: Farm Progress

Brazil: Mato Grosso Growers Cover Cash Costs but Not Full Costs

Rio Times: IMEA puts the full cost of producing cotton in Mato Grosso in 2026/27 at R$18,709 per hectare (about US$3,639), with the effective operating cost at R$15,250 (US$2,966). That translates into break-evens of R$120.06 per arroba of lint to cover cash costs and R$147.47 to cover full costs, while forward sales are averaging R$129.67 — roughly 76 US cents per pound, about 12% below the full-cost threshold. Input spending fell 1.44% year-on-year, but rents rose 4.72% in August and ammonium sulphate is trading 18.73% above its three-year average, leaving what IMEA calls a tight margin. Brazil exported a record 3.37 million tonnes of lint in the year to July 2026, with Mato Grosso accounting for roughly 70% of national output.
Source: Rio Times

U.S. Cotton: A Plan to Win Back Demand Lost to Synthetics

WUNC: Two decades of competition from nylon and polyester have left cotton demand flat — Staplcotn chief executive Hank Reichle notes the industry has seen no growth in twenty years — and the infrastructure has shrunk with it, from more than 1,500 U.S. gins in 1991 to about 400 today. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins' Great American Cotton Plan, announced in May, aims to reverse that, and its centrepiece is the proposed Buying American Cotton Act, which would give tax credits to mills using U.S. cotton, foreign ones included; Texas Tech economist Darren Hudson explains that mills could then bid more aggressively for American cotton knowing the credit follows. The bill has bipartisan backing but still needs hearings in both chambers. Alongside it runs the "Plant Not Plastic" campaign, which highlights microplastic shedding from synthetics, and garment makers report growing consumer demand for cotton even where synthetics hold technical advantages.
Source: WUNC

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