March has advanced 915 points or 13.7% over that period. Mills boosted unpriced on-call position to near the all-time high. U.S. premium in Far East narrowed a couple of points.

Cotton futures closed higher on heavy volume Friday, with spot March hitting a new contract high, ripping through last month’s then spot December contract peak (75.75 cents) and settling around the middle of the day’s range.

March finished up 59 points at 75.92 cents, trading within a 171-point range, from down 29 points at 75.04 to up 142 points at 76.75 cents. It has scored 8 consecutive weekly gains for an advance of 915 points or 13.7%.

May and July posted new contract highs for a second day on the way to closing up 69 points at 76.32 and up 77 points at 76.74 cents, respectively. For the week, March gained 220 points, May 212 points and July 235 points. The other contracts ended flat to up 41 points, with the largest gain in December 2018 at 72.88 cents, up 80 points for the week.

Volume increased to an estimated 47,474 lots from 34,036 lots the prior session when spreads totaled 12,699 lots or 37%, EFS 308 lots and EFP 193 lots. Options volume slipped to 15,535 lots (9,355 calls and 6,180 puts) from 17,573 lots (10,154 calls and 7,419 puts).

Mills increased their unpriced on-call sales by a net total of 2,526 lots to 147,484 lots (14.748 million bales) last week, only 24 lots from the all-time high set during the week ended Nov. 10.

The weekly call data, released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after the close Thursday, showed producers priced 593 lots to shave their unpriced position to 30,035 lots (3.004 million bales). The net call difference rose by 3,119 lots to 117,449 lots (11.745 million bales), 46.4% of the rising open interest.

A year ago, unpriced positions were 103,112 lots for mills and 20,631 lots for producers, and the net difference of 82,481 lots represented 33% of the declining open interest.

In the March, May and July contracts, mills added a net 1,808 lots to raise their unpriced position to 116,287 lots and producers priced a net 39 lots to trim theirs to 14,281 lots. This resulted in the net call difference rising by 1,847 lots to 102,006.

On the competitive-pricing front, the average of the five lowest-priced world growths for the Far East gained 92 points to 83 cents during the week ended Thursday, according to USDA calculations, while the lowest-quoted U.S. growth of comparable quality landed there gained 90 points to 83.15 cents.

The U.S. premium thus narrowed two ticks to 15 points. The adjusted world price for the week ending next Thursday, reflecting quality and transportation differentials, is 65.95 cents, which of course leaves the marketing loan gain at zero.

The fine count adjustment for 2017-crop qualities better than 31-3-35 is calculated at 0.60 of a cent per pound for the marketing week ahead, up from 0.48-cent.

Futures open interest expanded 4,528 lots to 261,667 lots on Thursday, with March’s up 1,638 lots to 170,723, May’s up 960 lots to 48,321, July’s up 700 lots to 13,267 and new-crop December’s up 1,009 lots to 27,686.

Certified stocks remained at 47,628 bales, unchanged since Dec. 4 and down from the 2017 high of 490,897 bales in June. Stocks in deliverable position a year ago were 77,776 bales.