Mostly light rain fell on the Texas High Plains. Light mill fixations left sizable unfixed on-call sales in December of 22,489 lots. Neither mills nor producers had any on-call position in October.
Cotton futures settled mostly lower in thin dealings Friday, with benchmark December down slightly after trading on both sides of unchanged.
December closed off 20 points to 84.52 cents, in the lower half of its 123-point range from up 58 points at 85.30 to down 65 points at 84.07 cents. Soon-to-mature October shed 201 points to 83.33 cents and March eased five ticks to 84.41 cents. December 2014 edged up 12 points to 79.43 cents.
For the week, October lost 188 points, December eked up six points, March gained 25 points, May rose 53 points, July tacked on 66 points and December 2014 advanced 91 points.
Volume slowed to an estimated 8,700 lots from 12,319 lots the previous session when spreads totaled 2,955 lots or 24% and EFP 242 lots. Options volume totaled 1,200 calls and 2,364 puts.
On the crop scene, mostly light rain fell overnight across a wide area of the Texas High Plains cotton area, with heavier amounts recorded in parts of the adjoining Rolling Plains on the east.
Many producers on the High Plains — this typically is the last U.S. area to harvest cotton — were hoping for significant rain to help complete the boll-filling process and perhaps begin rebuilding subsoil moisture for the next crop.
However, amounts at reporting sites in the High Plains cotton area ranged from a few hundredths of an inch to 0.85-inch and averaged only around a quarter of an inch.
Lamesa in Dawson County, a predominantly dryland area with light irrigation water, got the most of any cotton sites west of the Caprock and Denver City in Yoakum County almost matched it with 0.83-inch.
Rain continued to fall earlier today in the extreme southern High Plains and parts of the Rolling Plains. San Angelo in the Edwards Plateau got 2.45 inches overnight. Clearing was expected by tonight in the Lubbock area and no rain was foreseen for the next five days.
U.S. cotton classed increased to 71,874 bales during the week ended Thursday from the prior weekΆs 64,229 bales. This brought the total for the season to 274,544 bales, compared with 814,339 bales classed through the corresponding period last season.
The weekΆs classing run included 3,422 bales from Louisiana and the remainder from Texas. Tenderable cotton improved to 55.3% for the week and 49% for the season.
Meanwhile, light mill fixations of 256 lots in December last week left them with sizable unfixed on-call sales of 22,489 lots, according to the latest on-call data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Producer fixations of 257 lots shaved their unfixed December position to 9,446 lots. The net call difference thus widened a single lot to 13,043 lots, which amounted to 10.99% of DecemberΆs open interest. The ratio of the unfixed mill position to that of producers was 2.38:1.
Neither mills nor producers had a position in October, where first notice day arrives Tuesday. A small October open interest — only 80 lots coming into FridayΆs session — is likely to limit any delivery activity.
Mills added 1,006 lots to their unfixed on-call sales position in March, raising those to 17,164 lots, while producers nudged their open March holdings up 31 lots to 2,293.
Futures open interest edged up 197 lots Thursday to 181,472, with DecemberΆs down 30 lots to 119,427 and MarchΆs up 174 lots to 48,984. Certificated stocks dipped a bale to 15,053. No cotton awaited review.
World values as measured by the Cotlook A Index fell 70 points Friday morning to 90.75 cents. The premium to ThursdayΆs December futures settlement widened 12 points to 6.03 cents. For the week, the index gained 40 points.
