For the week ending Friday, May 19, nearby ICE cotton futures stair-stepped higher from below 81 cents to almost 88 cents per pound (see chart above courtesy of Barchart.com). The Jul’23 contract then settled Friday 126 points off the highs at 86.72 cents per pound, while new crop Dec’23 settled at 83.89 cents.  Conversely, the week saw down-trends in CBOT corn and soybean futures as well as in KC wheat futures.  Chinese cotton prices traded in a mixed pattern just over a dollar per pound, while the A-Index of world cotton prices trended higher across the week.  The U.S. dollar index trended higher across the week, also in a stair-step fashion similar to ICE cotton futures.

Cotton-specific influences this week included yet more rains over parts of Texas, although the accumulations were less than expected in some cases.  U.S. export sales were not as strong as in the previous several weekly reports, while actual export shipments remained strong.   USDA’s weekly summary of the U.S. regional markets continued to reflect mixed spot physical trading activity and demand across the various U.S. regions.

ICE cotton futures open interest increased across the week, while futures settlements were higher.  This has the appearance of new long positioning.   Indeed, the regular Tuesday snapshot of speculative positioning (through May 16) revealed 1,118 more hedge fund longs, which was partially offset by 523 more hedge fund shorts, week over week.  In addition, the index fund net long position shrank by 680 contracts.

For more details and data on Old Crop and New Crop fundamentals, plus other near term influences, follow these links (or the drop-down menus above) to those sub-pages.