Mills priced 1,212 lots in December last week and producers added 347 lots. U.S. outstanding loans on upland cotton fell to 197,753 bales.
Cotton futures rallied from a new contract low to finish in the green on the first day of the new marketing year Friday, snapping a string of three straight new contract low closes.
Benchmark December settled up 40 points to 63.27 cents, in the upper half of its 195-point range from down 85 points at 62.02 to up 110 points at 63.97 cents. It stalled just shy of ThursdayΆs high and lost 208 points for the week, the eighth consecutive losing week and 12th in the last 13.
Nearby October and March also posted 40-point closing gains, settling at 62.49 and 63.91 cents, respectively. Economic news may have helped the rally.
Volume quickened to an estimated 25,200 lots from 22,878 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 4,751 lots or 20%, EFP 52 lots and EFS seven lots. Options volume totaled 5,642 calls and 5,899 puts.
Mills priced 1,212 on-call lots in December during the week ended July 25 and producers added 347 lots for later pricing, according to the latest call data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Unpriced holdings fell to 12,657 on the mill side and rose to 22,774 on the producer side. The net call difference increased 1,559 lots to 10,117, which was 8.29% of the rising open interest, up from 7.13% a week earlier.
The unfixed December position of producers outweighed that of mills by a ratio of 1.8:1. Producers added 20 lots in March and 66 lots in July, while mills added 24 lots in March and priced 45 lots in May and 247 lots in July.
Neither mills nor producers held an on-call position in nearby October. In the contracts from December through July, mills priced a total of 1,480 lots to trim their open position to 41,274 lots and producers added 433 lots to raise theirs to 24,988.
This resulted in the December-July net call difference declining 1,913 lots to 16,286 lots and left mills with 1.7 contracts on which to fix prices to every one held by producers. The net difference amounted to 10.49% of the growing December-July open interest, down from 12.19%.
Separately, U.S. outstanding loans on 2013-crop upland cotton fell to 197,753 running bales during the week ended July 28 on repayments on 16,216 bales, according to USDA.
Loans outstanding included 26,143 bales of Form A issued to individual growers and 171,610 bales of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.
Futures open interest grew 1,012 lots Thursday to 161,434, with DecemberΆs up 179 lots to 122,320 and MarchΆs up 544 lots to 29,717. Cert stocks declined 10,247 bales to 126,361.
World prices as measured by the Cotlook A Index transitioned to 2014-15 values Thursday morning and fell 110 points to 72.15 cents. Premiums to ThursdayΆs futures settlements widened 15 points to 10.06 cents over October and three points to 9.28 cents over December.
The index for 2014-15 now will stand alone until a Forward A Index is introduced early next year for 2015-16. The timing depends upon when sufficient forward quotes have been introduced.
The index for 2013-14 went out on Thursday at a new low for the season at 79.60 cents, down from the opening value of 91.10 cents on Aug. 1, 2013.
Nearby futures closed on that first day of the 2013-14 marketing year at 85.88 cents, spiked at an intraday high of 97.35 cents on March 26 and finished Thursday on the low.
