Sharply lower U.S. stock indexes may have contributed to negative cotton sentiment. Mills priced or rolled 9,461 lots in March. U.S. upland loans outstanding declined 156,791 RB to 4.601 million.

Cotton futures finished in the red Friday, with spot March trading within the prior-session range and giving back what it gained that day.

March lost 105 points to close at 77.30 cents, just off the low of its 159-point range from up 47 points at 78.82 cents, to down 159 points at 77.23 cents. It lost 612 points for the week and has shed 612 points the last two weeks for a loss of 7.3%.

May settled down 84 points to 78.61 cents and July closed down 78 points to 79.46 cents. The other traded contracts closed down 15 to 34 points, with December down the most in those months at 75.08 cents.

Heavy losses in U.S. stocks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 600 points prior to its close and after the cotton close, and U.S. dollar strength may have contributed to the negative cotton sentiment.

Volume dipped to an estimated 69,300 lots from 75,849 lots the prior session when spreads accounted for 42,462 lots or 56%, EFS 1,033 lots and EFP 40 lots. Options volume dropped to 6,024 lots (1,945 calls and 4,079 puts) from 18,396 lots (10,837 calls and 7,559 puts).

Mills priced or rolled 9,461 on-call lots in March to reduce their unpriced sales in the spot contract to 28,905 lots last week, Commodity Futures Trading Commission call data showed after the close Thursday.

Producers shaved their unpriced March position 417 lots to 5,575. The ratio of potential buying to potential selling narrowed to 5.2:1. What portion of the unpriced positions may be hedged in options isn’t known, but it is generally thought to be sizable on the mill side.

The net call difference tightened 9,044 lots to 23,330 lots, which was 15.3% of the declining March open interest, down from 19.1%. Seventeen trading sessions remained at that time before first notice day on Feb. 22.

In the remaining old-crop contracts of March, May and July, mills priced a net 6,011 lots to cut their unpriced 2017-18 marketing year sales to 107,121 and producers priced a net 421 lots to trim theirs to 9,871.

The old-crop net call difference of 97,250 lots, down 5,590 lots, represented 35.9% of the open interest, down from 38.3%. The total March, May and July open interest rose by 2,726 lots to 271,272.

Across the board, mills priced a net 3,540 lots, reducing their unfixed sales to 154,655 from a record high, and producers added a net 533 lots to raise theirs to 31,545 lots.

Meanwhile, U.S. 2017-crop upland loans outstanding declined 156,791 running bales to 4.601 million during the week ended Monday, according to the latest USDA figures.

Repayments were made on 486,220 RB and entries were 329,429 RB. The outstanding loans included 412,729 RB of Form A issued to individual growers and 4.188 million RB issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.

Futures open interest declined 756 lots o 303,076 on Thursday, with March’s down 7,630 lots to 122,241 and May’s up 1,844 lots to 92,650. Certified stocks grew 1,631 bales to 67,972. The additions were 1,000 bales at Galveston and 631 at Memphis.