Mills stepped up their on-call pricing to 3,496 lots in December. U.S. upland classing reached 6.084 million RB, 40% of the crop estimate and 71.4% tenderable.
Cotton futures dived from a 16-session high in early morning to just below the overnight opening and settled near the dayΆs low Friday, capping a week of huge trading volumes with the largest turnover yet.
Spot December finished down 76 points to 68.44 cents, trading within a wide 313-point range from up 224 points at 71.44 cents, its highest intraday print since Oct. 20, to down 89 points at 68.31 cents. For the week, it eased nine points.
March closed down 80 points to 69.03 cents, also near the low of its 324-point range from up 225 points at 72.08 to down 99 points at 68.84 cents. December 2017 dropped 63 points to close at 68.87 cents. For the week, March eased seven points and December 2017 edged up 13 points.
A rebound in U.S. dollar index futures, a sharp decline in oil prices and weak soybeans may have contributed to the cotton reversal. Spread activity remained high.
Volume was estimated at an astonishing estimated 99,739 lots, up from 83,268 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 56,556 lots or 68%, EFS 4,527 lots and EFP 3,732 lots. Options volume totaled 21,477 lots — 8,583 calls and 12,894 puts.
Mills boosted their on-call pricing in December to 3,496 lots last week and producers hiked theirs to 1,088 lots, according to the latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Unpriced positions fell to 16,230 lots on the mill side and to 8,960 lots on the producer side. The net call difference slid to 2,408 lots, which was 6.57% of DecemberΆs declining open interest, compared with 7.12% a week earlier.
The unpriced mill position outweighed that of producers by a ratio of 1.81:1, against 1.96:1 the previous week. Mills and others who donΆt want to take or make delivery had 12 trading sessions left in which to price or roll positions prior to first notice day for December on Nov. 23.
Mills added 697 lots in March, 327 lots in May and 482 lots in July and priced 49 lots in December 2017, while producers added 213 lots in March, 91 lots in May, priced 28 lots in July and added 359 lots in new-crop December.
On the crop scene, U.S. upland classing increased to 1.247 million running bales during the week ended Thursday to boost the seasonΆs total to 6.084 million RB, 40% of USDAΆs November production estimate.
Cotton meeting quality requirements for tendering on futures contracts totaled 73% for the week and 71.4% for the season, compared with 72.7% and 70.9%, respectively, the previous week.
Pima classing of 45,296 RB brought the extra-long staple count for the season to 135,653 RB, about 25% of the ELS crop estimate.
Futures open interest dipped 290 lots Thursday to 250,725, with DecemberΆs down 18,106 lots to 60,943 and MarchΆs up 15,081 lots to 137,932. Cert stocks declined 321 bales to 46,768. There were 1,351 newly certified bales and 1,672 bales decertified.
