Cotton Closes On New Low Finish Since Oct. 12

Mills priced 520 on-call lots and producers 795 lots in December. IndiaΆs Cotton Advisory Board forecast smaller crop. U.S. upland cotton under loan rose to 738,082 bales. AWP figured at 47.16 cents.

U.S. cotton futures finished in the red for the fourth time this week on heavy volume Friday and spot December settling below last weekΆs low.

December closed down 29 points to 61.66 cents, a new low finish since Oct. 12 and just a tick off the low of the sessionΆs 55-point range from up 25 points at 62.20 to down 30 points at 61.65 cents. It held just above a 61.8% retracement (61.61) of the rally from the contract low at 59.70 on Sept. 24 to the Oct. 22 high at 64.69.

March closed down 39 points to 61.74 cents. For the week, December lost 166 points and March dropped 126 points.

Volume increased to an estimated 46,300 lots from 30,836 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 20,115 lots or 65% and EFP 93 lots. Options volume totaled 3,392 calls and 1,646 puts.

In on-call activity, mills priced 520 lots and producers 795 lots in December last week, according to the latest data reported by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

This reduced the unfixed positions to 12,185 lots on the mill side and to 7,195 lots on the producer side. The net call difference dipped 275 lots to 4,990, which was 4.75% of DecemberΆs declining open interest, compared with 4.01% a week earlier.

The unpriced mill position outweighed that of producers by a ratio of 1.69:1, with first notice day for December deliveries looming Nov. 23.

On the international scene, IndiaΆs Cotton Advisory Board earlier this week projected a drop in its 2015 crop to 36.5 million 170-kilo bales or 28.5 million 480-pound bales.

This is the same as a production estimate released last month from the U.S. agricultural attache in Mumbai and is 500,000 480-pound bales below USDAΆs official October crop forecast for India.

The USDA estimated the crop in India, the worldΆs largest cotton producer this season, down 500,000 bales from last season, with a lower area and higher yield expected to keep output near the five-year average.

Back on the domestic scene, U.S. upland loans outstanding increased by 356,804 running bales to 738,082 during the week ended Monday, according to the latest USDA figures.

Entries totaled 375,126 bales and repayments were made on 18,322 bales. The cotton under loan included 41,653 bales of Form A issued to individual growers and 698,303 bales of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.

Meanwhile, the average price of the five lowest-quoted world growths for the Far East edged up two points to 66.91 cents during the week ended Thursday, according to USDA calculations, while the lowest-quoted U.S. cotton landed there gained 35 points to 73.65 cents.

The adjusted world price for the week ending next Thursday, minus transportation and quality differentials, is 47.16 cents. This results in a marketing loan gain of 4.84 cents, against this weekΆs 4.86 cents. The fine count adjustment on 2015-crop qualities better than 31-3-35 is 0.86 of a cent.

Futures open interest increased 910 lots Thursday to 194,965, with DecemberΆs down 3,521 lots to 87,847 and MarchΆs up 3,418 lots to 76,942. Cert stocks grew 347 bales to 42,322. There were 462 newly certified bales, 115 bales decertified and 3,872 bales awaiting review.