Constructive U.S. all-cotton weekly export sales of 228,600 RB, though a bit below expectations, offered support. Export commitments for 2017-18 now stand at 62% of the USDA forecast.

Cotton futures finished on a strong gain Thursday, with spot December pushing to a six-session intraday high and settling on its highest close since Oct. 25.

December posted the largest closing gain, up 91 points to 69.08 cents, settling in the upper quarter of its 119-point range from down six points at 68.11 cents to up 113 points at 69.30 cents. It had made three straight lows at 68.10 and 68.11 cents.

March gained 82 points to settle at 68.97 cents, just off the high of its 94-point range from 68.06 to 69 cents. The other contracts settled up 59 to 81 points.

Constructive U.S. weekly export sales, though a bit below expectations, offered support along with scale-down mill fixations in the face of expanding U.S. harvesting.

Volume increased to an estimated 42,228 lots from 39,139 lots the prior session when spreads accounted for 23,787 lots or 61%, EFS 597 lots and EFP 97 lots. Options volume climbed to 7,071 lots (4,197 calls and 2,874 puts) from 4,254 lots (2,025 calls and 2,229 puts).

Net all-cotton export sales of 228,600 running bales for shipment this season during the week ended Oct. 26, down from a marketing year high of 305,300 RB the prior week, boosted 2017-18 commitments to 8.69 million RB.

Commitments rose to 62% of USDA’s export forecast, compared with 44% of final 2016-17 shipments at the corresponding point last season, and were 2.306 million RB or 36% above cumulative sales a year ago.

All-cotton shipments remained slow at 90,200 RB, down from 99,700 RB the week before. This brought exports for the season to 2.207 million RB, down 379,000 RB from a year ago. Shipments are 13% of the export estimate, compared with 15% of final 2016-17 exports at the corresponding point last season.

To achieve the export projection, shipments need to average roughly 313,800 RB a week, while weekly sales averaging around 137,800 RB would match the forecast.

Sales for shipment next season of 47,100 RB boosted 2018-19 commitments to 886,000 RB, widening the lead over forward bookings a year ago by 41,000 RB to 451,600.

The USDA export projection of 14.5 million statistical bales is down 2.8% from last season but still would rank as the third largest on record behind only 14.92 million in 2016-17 and 17.76 million in 2005-06.

Meanwhile, with its estimates converted to 480-pound bales from metric tons, the International Cotton Advisory Committee has raised its world crop estimate 920,000 bales from a month ago to 117.49 million.

Mill use remained projected at 115.83 million bales, with production now projected to outpace consumption by 1.66 million bales, up from 740,000 bales foreseen last month.

Futures open interest increased 437 lots to 234,555 on Wednesday. December’s declined 3,216 lots to 103,148 and March’s expanded 3,126 lots to 88,636 as rolling of positions from the front month continued.

An increase — the first in a long while — of 25,048 bales in certified stocks drew attention. Stocks in deliverable position rose to 26,759 bales, with 20 bales decertified.