VietnamΆs cotton imports jumped last month and ChinaΆs declined. World imports projected up 4% this season by ICAC. U.S. upland cotton under loan increased to 1.87 million RB.

Cotton futures finished with triple-digit gains across the board Tuesday, led by spot December on its highest close since Oct. 28.

December settled up 179 points to 70.69 cents, in the upper third of its 225-point range from up 19 points at 69.09 to up 244 points at 71.34 cents. It gapped higher overnight and touched the high in early morning.

March finished up 117 points to 70.48 cents, near the high of its 111-point range from 69.41 to 70.52 cents, while December 2017 gained 101 points to close at 70.09 cents.

With first notice day now five sessions ahead, short-covering appeared to have undergirded the advance in nearby December. Mills came into the week with unpriced on-call lots in December totaling 16,230, which outweighed those on the producer side by a ratio of 1.81:1.

Volume rose to an estimated 55,994 lots from 38,319 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 23,914 lots or 62%, EFS 1,421 lots and EFP 160 lots. Options volume totaled 3,255 calls and 2,179 puts.

Traders noted that cotton imports by Vietnam climbed in October by 15.6% from a year ago to 87,213 metric tons (400,562 480-pound bales), while ChinaΆs imports declined 1.9% to 41,300 tons (189,687 bales).

Customs data also showed ChinaΆs imports for the first 10 months of the calendar year declined 42% from a year earlier to nearly 696,000 tons (almost 3.2 million bales).

As of Nov. 3, Vietnam and China ranked as the second and third largest foreign buyers of U.S. cotton for shipment this season, having purchased 966,000 statistical bales and 871,000 bales, respectively. Mexico led on purchases of 1.004 million bales.

World imports are forecast by the International Cotton Advisory Committee to increase by 4% this season to 7.48 million tons (34.4 million bales), a report from the secretariat showed this week.

Bangladesh is projected to boost its imports by 10% to 1.2 million tons (5.51 million bales), while imports by Vietnam are expected to jump 15% to 1.1 million tons (5.05 million bales).

With a bigger crop providing larger exportable supplies, USDA this month projected U.S. exports up 31% from last season to 12 million bales.

India, on the other hand, is likely to see its exports fall by 34% to 825,000 tons (3.8 million bales), ICAC says, as stocks are replenished after declining by 21% to just under 2 million tons (9.2 million bales) at the end of 2015-16.

On the U.S. crop scene, upland loan entries increased 420,031 running bales to 1.873 million RB during the week ended Nov. 7, USDA reported Monday. Entries were 607,927 RB and repayments were made on 187,896 RB.

Upland cotton under loan included 164,807 RB of Form A issued to individual growers and 1,708,617 RB of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.

Futures open interest fell 5,934 lots Monday to 239,770, with DecemberΆs down 10,739 lots to 32,338 and MarchΆs up 3,953 lots to 151,782. Cert stocks grew 236 bales to 47,559. There were 527 newly certified bales and 264 bales decertified.