Spot May leaped off a five-week low. U.S. planting intentions came in higher than generally expected at 12.233 million acres, up 21.4% from 2016. Mills priced or rolled 5,502 lots in the May contract.
Cotton futures, which had fallen this week as a big increase in U.S. prospective plantings loomed, leaped from a follow-through five-week low Friday after intentions actually topped most expectations.
Spot May initially fell on the USDA acreage report but quickly led the charge higher to close up 110 points at 77.33 cents, just off the high of its 160-point range from down 43 points at 75.80 to up 117 points at 77.40 cents.
May rallied off its lowest intraday print since Feb. 23, still finishing down 14 points for the week but up 99 points or 1.3% for the month and 173 points or 2.3% for the quarter.
July settled up 99 points for the day but down 15 points for the week at 78.59 cents, trading within a 147-point range from 77.17 to 78.64 cents. December closed up 40 points to 74.09 cents, in the upper quarter of its 140-point range from 73 cents — lowest since Feb. 2 — to 74.40. For the week, December lost 140 points.
Volume increased to an estimated 43,322 lots from 28,071 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 13,459 lots or 48%, EFS 865 lots and EFP 714 lots. Options volume rose to 9,552 lots (4,836 calls and 4,716 puts) from 7,858 lots (5,869 calls and 1,989 puts).
U.S. all-cotton prospective plantings jumped to 12.233 million acres, up 21.4% from last year, USDA reported. Intentions rose by 21.5% to 12.001 million acres of upland and 19.3% to 232,000 acres of Pima or extra-long staple cotton.
If realized, cotton plantings would be the largest since 2012 when growers seeded 12.31 million acres and would extend a rebound from the smallest cotton plantings two years ago, 8.58 million acres, since 1983.
Expectations of higher cotton prices in 2017 are driving the acreage increase throughout the Cotton Belt, USDA said. Growers in Oklahoma reported intentions to plant the largest upland area there, 470,000 acres, since 1982.
The upland area in Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas is expected to be the highest since 2011. Producers in Texas, the largest cotton state, intend to boost plantings 22.1% to 6.9 million acres.
By regions, upland intentions are up 13.6% to 2.465 million acres in the Southeast, 22.5% to 1.825 million acres in the Mid-South, 24% to 7.426 million acres in the Southwest and 22.3% to 285,000 acres in The West.
All-cotton intentions surged from USDAΆs analytical projection of 11.5 million acres reported at its Outlook Forum last month and from 11.017 million acres foreseen in a National Cotton Council survey conducted from mid-December to mid-January.
The USDAΆs March prospective upland plantings reports during the past 20 years have been below the final tally 12 times and above eight times. Changes between the intentions and final plantings have averaged 617,000 acres and have ranged from 6,000 acres to 2.115 million acres.
Meanwhile, mills priced or rolled 5,502 on-call lots in the May contract last week to reduce their unfixed position to 27,775 lots, while producers nudged theirs down 40 lots to 2,247.
The latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission on-call report, released after the close Thursday, showed the net call difference thus fell 5,462 lots to 25,528, 16.8% of MayΆs open interest. The unpriced ratio declined to 12.3 to 1.
Futures open interest slid 2,166 lots Thursday to 277,371. MayΆs OI dropped 4,799 lots to 136,156, JulyΆs gained 1,135 lots to 58,191 and DecemberΆs rose by 1,360 lots to (misstated here Thursday) 73,388. Cert stocks grew 1,439 bales to 322,789.
