U.S. 2015-16 export commitments climbed to 105% of the USDA forecast and shipments totaled 86%. Rebound expected in U.S. share of world 2016-17 cotton trade.
Cotton futures settled higher Thursday, extending overnight gains after U.S. weekly export sales came in stronger than expected.
Most-active December closed up 89 points to 65.42 cents, in the upper half of its 169-point range from down seven points at 64.46 to up 162 points at 66.15 cents. It finished above WednesdayΆs inside-range high and back above its nine-day and 18-day moving averages.
Spot July jumped 194 points to close at 64.88 cents, trading within a wide 253-point range from 62.92 to 65.45 cents. First-day delivery notices for Friday are expected to be posted by tonight.
Volume slowed to an estimated 22,600 lots from 26,199 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 9,854 lots or 38% and EFS 2,000 lots. Options volume totaled 2,243 calls and 1,199 puts.
Net all-cotton export sales for shipment this season of 178,100 running bales during the week ended June 16, up from 71,700 RB the previous week, boosted 2015-16 commitments to 9.137 million RB.
This narrowed the lag behind year-ago commitments by 114,000 RB to 1.989 million or to 18%. Commitments reached 105% of the USDA estimate, compared with 102% of final 2014-15 shipments a year ago.
All-cotton shipments remained below the pace needed to achieve the forecast, though rising to 175,200 RB from 146,200 RB the previous week. The gap behind year-ago exports widened a slight 31,000 bales to 2.218 million RB, still about 23% behind shipments at the corresponding point last season.
Shipments were 86% of the forecast, compared with 89% of last seasonΆs final exports a year ago. To achieve the projection, shipments now need to average roughly 203,800 RB a week.
Combined upland and Pima sales for 2016-17 of 97,200 RB, up from 47,000 RB the previous week, brought bookings for both crop years to 275,400 RB and raised new-crop commitments to 1.713 million RB.
New-crop commitments totaled 1.713 million RB, up from forward bookings a year ago of 1.532 million RB, and were 17% of the USDA forecast. A year ago, forward bookings were 18% of the current 2015-16 export estimate.
The USDAΆs 2015-16 export estimate of 9 million statistical bales is down 20% from the prior year and its forecast for 2016-17, when larger supplies are expected, is shipments to increase to 10.5 million bales.
This would mean the U.S. share of world cotton trade would rebound to 31.5% in 2016-17, near the 2014-15 level and up from 26.3% estimated for 2015-16. World cotton trade is forecast at 33.3 million SB in 2016-17, down 900,000 SB from this seasonΆs estimate and the lowest since 2008-09 when it totaled 30.3 million SB.
Futures open interest declined 3,141 lots Wednesday to 186,122, with JulyΆs down 2,406 lots to 2,669 and DecemberΆs down 1,285 lots to 152,387. Certificated stocks grew 2,634 bales to 135,161. No cotton awaited review.
