Cotton Stages Outside-Range Reversal Down
U.S. export commitments reached about 36% of USDA estimate and shipments nearly 12%. Overnight rain ranged from 1.42 to 3.94 inches on the Texas High Plains.
Cotton futures stayed a bearish outside-range reversal Thursday, tumbling to steep losses after narrowly posting a new high for the move in the early going.
December settled down 171 points to 62.52 cents, in the lower quarter of its 232-point range from up 46 points at 64.69 cents to down 186 points at 62.37 cents. It settled below lows of the prior six sessions after touching a new intraday high since Aug. 25 round 7:15 am CDT.
March closed down 168 points to 62.37 cents and December 2016 finished down 100 points to 63.10 cents.
The plunge was attributed to a combination of profit-taking, a surge in the US dollar index, overbought momentum and forecasts for a return Friday to sunny to mostly sunny skies in the Texas High Plains.
Volume slowed to an estimated 33,300 lots from 30,135 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 10,353 lots or 44% and the EFP 20 lots. Options volume totaled 9,093 calls and 4,926 puts.
US all-cotton export sales for shipment this season of 104,000 running bales, up from the previous weekΆs 70,600 bales, boosted 2015-16 commitments to 3.585 million bales.
The lag behind cumulative sales a year ago narrow 21,000 bales to a still-large 2.121 million. Commitments amounted to 36% of USDAΆs export forecast, compared with 52% of final 2014-15 shipments at the corresponding point last season.
All-cotton shipments of 65,500 running bales, down from 74,700 bales the week before, brought the total for the season to 1.172 million. The lead over exports a year ago narrowed to 141,000 running bales.
Shipments were nearly 12% of the USDA projections, compared with about 9% of final exports a year ago. Exports this season are forecast to fall 9.3% from 2014-15 to the smallest since 2000-10.
To achieve the USDA estimate, shipments need to average roughly 207,600 running bales a week, while sales averaging roughly 150,000 RB would match the export forecast.
Sales for shipment next season of 9,300 bales, against none the previous week, hiked 2016-17 commitments to 578,500 RB, 103,000 RB ahead of forward bookings a year ago.
On the weather scene, rainfall on the Texas High Plains west of the Caprock ranged in the 24-hour period ended at 8am CDT Thursday from 1.42 inches at Tulia in Swisher County to 3.94 inches at Denver City in Yoakum County. Lubbock got 2.10 inches.
Futures open interest increased 2,604 lots Thursday to 196,265, with DecemberΆs up 843 lots to 115,374 and MarchΆs up 1,374 lots to 60,195. Cert stocks dropped 127 bales to 42,318. There were 450 newly certified bales and 577 decertified bales. Awaiting review were 4,304 bales.
