Upland growers have contracted 31,312 acres. Planting continued in southern Texas. Final classing report issued at Lubbock. Combined Lubbock-Lamesa classing reached 4.198 million RB. Pima planting 75% completed in Arizona.
Cotton futures remained within the overnight range and settled with a modest gain in most-active May Monday, extending the recovery off the spike low of a week ago.
- May finished up 27 points to 57.38 cents, a six-day high close in the lower half of the session’s 80-point range from down a point at 57.10 to up 79 points at 57.90 cents. The high stalled shy of the 18-day moving average, now 58 cents.
- March, facing its final trading day on Tuesday, closed down a point at 58.92 cents, while July gained 64 points to 57.35 cents and December added 81 points to 57.26 cents.
- A 38.2% retracement of MayΆs decline from the Dec. 9 high of 65.80 to the Feb. 29 contract low of 54.53 would be 58.84 cents and a 50% retracement would be 60.17 cents.
- Volume quickened to an estimated 30,223 lots from 19,049 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 7,791 lots or 41% and EFS 183 lots. Options volume totaled 3,996 calls and 1,882 puts.
U.S. upland growers had forward contracted about 31,312 acres of the 2016 crop coming into March, compared with 31,400 acres booked a year ago, according to informal surveys by USDAΆs Agricultural Marketing Service.
The estimates showed contracting of 272 acres in the Southeast, 2,200 acres in the Southwest, 28,650 acres in the Mid-South and 190 acres in the western states.
Planting continued at a steady pace in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley during the week ended Thursday, AMS reported in a cotton review. A few stray showers deposited light rainfall. East Texas producers welcomed up to 3 inches of rainfall.
The Lubbock and Lamesa classing offices on the Texas High Plains graded a combined 17,239 running bales of 2015-crop cotton to boost the seasonΆs total for the two offices to 4.198 million RB.
The Lubbock facility classed 2,593 RB to bring its total to 2,559,789 RB and Lamesa graded 14,646 to hike its count to 1,638,644 RB. This was the final report of the season for Lubbock.
Color grades 31 (middling) and higher accounted for 72.4% of the Lubbock total and leaf grades averaged 3.53. Staple lengths averaged 35.87, with 56.7% stapling 36 and higher. Micronaire averaged 3.92, including 85.2% in 3.5-4.9 range.
Strength averaged 30.93 and the average uniformity index was 80.31, while total bark ended at 23.6%.
The Abilene office has classed 1,029,488 RB, including 650,120 from West Texas, 342,183 from Oklahoma and 37,185 from Kansas. The weekΆs run included 5 RB from West Texas, 2,917 from Oklahoma and 302 from Kansas.
Trading of Commodity Credit Corp. loan equities was active in the West Texas Plains. Producers in the Desert Southwest inquired for new-crop contracting but no bookings were reported.
The few gins that remained in operation in the Southeast were submitting their final samples to the Macon classing office.
Planting of Pima was 75% completed around Yuma, Ariz. The Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which serves southern New Mexico and the El Paso area, intends to make water available for pre-planting irrigation in March. During past drought years, water for irrigation purposes wasnΆt released until June.
Planting can begin March 10 in the San Joaquin Valley but forecasts for rain and cold temperatures over the weekend were expected to result in delays. The California Department of Water Resources reported the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains was 83% of the March 1 average.
Futures open interest edged up 183 lots Friday to 207,341, with MarchΆs unchanged at 224 lots and MayΆs down 1,612 lots to 122,787. Cert stocks grew 1,868 bales to 74,046. Awaiting review were 21 bales.
