Cotton Finishes Mostly Marginally Lower
Classing of U.S. upland slowed as 71% of the estimated crop now graded and 51.6% met tenderable requirements. Steady progress pushed the Texas High Plains harvest to more than 80% completed.
U.S. cotton futures closed marginally lower in most traded contracts in a narrow-range, light-volume session Friday amid a sharp sell-off in global stock markets and a slump to a seven-year low in oil prices.
Spot March eased off six points to settle at 63.71 cents, just above the midpoint of its 48-point range from up 14 points at 63.91 cents to down 34 points at 63.43 cents. It posted the high in the early minutes of overnight dealings.
May and July both also closed off six points, settling at 64.49 and 65.14 cents, respectively, while December 2016 finished down seven points to 65.16 cents. March lost 100 points for the week, snapping a string of four consecutive weekly gains.
Volume slowed to an estimated 15,874 lots from 29,140 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 11,128 lots or 38%, EFS 800 lots and EFP 392 lots. Options volume totaled 2,100 calls and 1,659 puts.
U.S. upland cotton classing slipped to 980,316 running bales during the week ended Thursday from the prior weekΆs 1.017 million, bringing the total for the season to 8.694 million RB.
The total is about 71% of USDAΆs December upland crop estimate in running bales and down 23% from 11.293 million bales classed a year ago. Classing last season had reached 74% of the final upland output.
Cotton tenderable on U.S. cotton futures contracts totaled 56.1% for the season, compared with 56.4% a week earlier and 71.9% a year ago.
Talk has circulated that concern about the reduced availability of higher grades along with the higher prices during the week ended Dec. 3 played roles in the sharply lower export sales reported Thursday.
Classing of 35,746 bales of Pima brought the seasonΆs extra-long staple total to 299,437 bales and the all-cotton total to 8.994 million bales, down from 11.697 million bales graded a year ago.
Harvesting progressed steadily under sunny, relatively warm conditions on the Texas High Plains.
The crop is more than 80% harvested in its 41-county area, the Lubbock-based Plains Cotton Growers, Inc., estimated. Off the Caprock, however, harvesting and ginning were estimated less than 50% completed.
The USDAΆs Visalia facility estimated that about 60% of the Far West upland crop and about 70% of the Pima production has been classed.
Meanwhile, U.S. upland outstanding loans declined 28,726 RB to 2.413 million during the week ended Monday, the latest USDA figures showed.
Repayments were made on 623,171 bales and entries totaled 594,445 bales. Upland cotton under loan included 261,823 bales of Form A issued to individual growers and 2.151 million bales of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.
Futures open interest edged up 99 lots Thursday to 197,183, with MarchΆs down 1,866 lots to 144,952 and MayΆs up 1,153 lots to 29,079. Cert stocks grew 121 bales to 65,247. There were 124 newly certified bales and three bales decertified.
