December posted largest gain. Unpriced on-call mill holdings still far outweighed those of producers. U.S. outstanding upland loans fell to 1.041 million bales.

Cotton futures hit the session high in the early morning, tested the prior dayΆs low and finished with a small gain at a new seasonal high close in most-active July Friday.

July edged up 12 points to settle at 94.32 cents, in the lower half of its 126-point range from up 90 points at 95.10 to down 36 points at 93.84 cents. It printed its highest intraday price since March 26.

December posted the largest closing gain, settling up 56 points to 83.94 cents, also a new high close for the move and a tick off the high of its 86-point range from 83.09 to 83.95 cents.

For the week, July gained 107 points and December rose 123 points. This marked the third consecutive weekly gain for July and the fourth for December.
Flat wages and a decline in the number of people looking for work dulled early Wall Street enthusiasm over strong U.S. jobs growth and may have contributed to capping gains in cotton, which is especially sensitive to economic data. Geopolitical headlines also may have weighed on sentiment as the weekend approached.

Volume increased to an electronically estimated 16,100 lots from a final 9,683 lots the previous session when spreads totaled 3,299 lots or 34% and EFS five lots.

A big block of unfixed on-call positions on the mill side still far outweighed those on the producer side in July coming into the week, offering significant scale-down support.

Unpriced mill call holdings rose by 1,011 lots to 30,194 during the week ended April 25, including rollovers from May, according to the latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

With the unpriced producer position up 110 lots to 2,117, the net call difference widened by 901 lots to 28,077 lots (2.808 million bales), which was 25.61% of JulyΆs rising open interest, against 25.82% a week earlier. The unfixed mill position outweighed that of producers by a ratio of 14.26:1, down slightly from 14:54:1.

In December, mills added 355 lots, lifting their open call position there to 11,089 lots, while producers priced 499 lots to reduce theirs to 18,188 lots. The margin by which the producer position exceeded the mill holdings narrowed 854 lots to 7,029, which reflected a 2.35-point decline in the net call difference to 12.63% of the also growing open interest.

Meanwhile, U.S. outstanding upland loans fell 60,153 running bales during the week ended April 28 to 1.041 million, USDA reported. Repayments were made on 60,154 bales and a single bale was entered.

Upland loans outstanding included 70,685 bales of Form A issued to individual growers and 990,567 bales of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.

Futures open interest expanded 1,210 lots Thursday to 186,111, with MayΆs down 30 lots to 534, JulyΆs up 864 lots to 119,508 and DecemberΆs up 361 lots to 59,491. Certificated stocks grew 7,683 bales to 329,998. There were 10,420 bales awaiting review.

World values as measured by the Cotlook A Index were unchanged Friday morning at 95.30 cents. The premium to ThursdayΆs July futures settlement widened nine points to 1.10 cents.

The Forward A Index for 2014-15 also was flat at 91.75 cents, leaving the discount to the 2013-14 index at 3.55 cents and nudging the premium to ThursdayΆs December futures close out two points to 8.37 cents.

For the week, the current-crop index gained 110 points and the new-crop index rose 85 points.