December posted a slight weekly gain. Mills added a board total of 796 lots to their unpriced on-call position. U.S. upland loans outstanding declined to 4.155 million running bales.
Cotton futures finished lower for a second session Friday, with May completing an inside day and settling with a weekly loss after posting a new contract high on Monday.
The May delivery lost 53 points for the day and 70 points for the week to settle at 77.29 cents, a six-session low finish. It closed near the low of the sessionΆs 85-point range, from up 18 points at 78 cents to down 67 points at 77.15 cents. May had posted back-to-back weekly gains.
July settled down 52 points to 78.37 cents and December dipped 20 points to 75.29 cents. For the week, July lost 46 points and December gained 35 points.
The market continued to digest USDAΆs monthly 2016-17 supply-demand estimates, which looked supportive on the U.S. balance sheet and negative on the world numbers.
In outside markets, crude oil retreated from early gains to hit a new low for the move and trade down 89 cents to $48.39 around the time of the cotton close. U.S. dollar index futures traded down 0.6%.
Grains extended losses. May corn closed down 0.7%, May soybeans 0.4%, May Chicago wheat 0.8% and May Kansas City wheat 1.5%.
Volume slowed to an electronically estimated 23,244 lots from 33,446 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 14,774 lots or 44% and EFP seven lots.
Mills added a board total of 796 lots to their on-call position last week and producers priced 4,020 lots, according to call figures reported by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after the close Thursday.
The unpriced positions rose to 115,431 lots on the mill side and declined to 26,761 lots on the producer side. The net call difference thus increased 4,816 lots to 88,670, 32.9% of the open interest.
This represented potential buying of 4.3 contracts by mills to every one of potential selling by producers. In the old-crop May-July contracts combined, the ratio was a lopsided 15.2:1.
Mills added 3,022 lots in December to boost their unfixed position there to 18,485 lots and producers added 568 lots to lift theirs to 16,964 lots.
On the crop scene, U.S. 2016-crop upland loans outstanding declined 239,919 running bales to 4.155 million RB during the week ended Monday, according to the latest USDA figures.
Repayments were made on 281,539 RB and entries were 41,620 RB. Outstanding were 356,000 RB of Form A loans issued to individual growers and 3.799 million RB of Form G loans issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.
Futures open interest edged up 343 lots Thursday to 273,846. MayΆs OI dropped 708 lots to 160,131, JulyΆs fell 1,096 lots to 48,842 and DecemberΆs grew 2,098 lots to 57,153. Cert stocks were unchanged at 324,840 bales.
