Widespread rains expected on the Texas Plains. Mill on-call fixations totaled a light 256 lots. Outstanding 2014-crop upland loans rose to 58,094 bales.
Cotton futures about halved a steep loss in benchmark December Friday but still wound up giving back essentially all of last weekΆs strong gain.
December closed off 66 points to 64.39 cents, trading within a 142-point range from up seven points at 65.12 to down 135 points at 63.70 cents. At the low, it was within 83 points of its contract low close on July 31. It lost 361 points for the week, settling eight ticks above its close two weeks ago.
March settled down 67 points to 64.29 cents and soon-to-mature nearby October closed off 91 points to 65.99 cents.
A strong dollar, weak commodities, losses in the Chinese cotton markets and rumblings about ChinaΆs slowly evolving new cotton program pressured futures, analysts said.
Volume quickened to an estimated 23,400 lots from 20,872 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 5,881 lots or 28% and EFP 114 lots. Options volume totaled 2,745 calls and 7,325 puts.
On the weather front, remnants of Tropical Cyclone Odile were expected to move into the West Texas Plains Friday and into the weekend, bringing the potential for widespread rainfall of 1 to 3 inches and some locally heavier accumulations.
With the ground having been soaked by several recent rounds of rainfall, forecasters said, the runoff potential will be high, leading to areas of flooding or flash flooding.
Showers dotted the Plains Friday morning, and rainfall chances in the Lubbock area were listed at 90% Friday afternoon, 80% Friday night, 60% Saturday, 40% Sunday and 30% Sunday night, lingering on diminished chances through Tuesday.
A period of warm, sunny weather is needed to facilitate boll development and fiber maturation. Development in much of the High Plains crop still is 10 days to two weeks behind where it should be at this calendar date, cotton agronomists say.
Unfixed on-call positions based in December declined a light 256 lots on the mill side last week and 780 lots on the producer side, according to the latest call data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
This reduced the mill position to 9,993 lots and the producer holdings to 18,056 lots, narrowing the net call difference by 524 lots to 8,587, which was 7.3% of DecemberΆs open interest. The unpriced producer position outweighed that of mills by a ratio of 1.81:1.
In the March through July contracts, mills added 727 lots to bring their unpriced position to 33,546 lots and producers added 1,081 lots to boost theirs to 6,507 lots. Mills had 5.15 unpriced contracts in those deliveries to every one held by producers.
Separately, outstanding loans on 2014-crop upland cotton rose by 25,272 bales during the week ended Monday on entries of 41,778 bales and repayments on 16,506 bales, USDA figures showed.
All the loans outstanding of 58,095 bales were Form G loans issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.
Upland cotton still under loan from the 2013 crop dwindled by 4,742 bales to 14,756 bales, including 1,448 bales of Form A loans issued to individual growers and 13,308 bales of Form G loans.
Futures open interest fell 1,134 lots Thursday to 180,872, with DecemberΆs down 591 lots to 108,366 and MarchΆs down 581 to 55,329. For the week, open interest fell 3,344 lots. Certificated stocks declined 23,295 bales to 21,218, smallest since October 2013.
World prices as measured by the Cotlook A Index dropped 55 points Friday morning to 73.58 cents, widening the premium to ThursdayΆs December futures settlement by eight points to 8.45 cents. For the week, the index lost 235 points.
