On-call report showed extremely light activity in the July contract. New CAI estimate pegged IndiaΆs crop at 26.68 million statistical 480-pound bales. Upland cotton under loan fell to 1.049 million RB.
Cotton futures settled on fractional losses amid a late flurry of activity Friday after spending most of this next-to-last trading day of the month in the red.
Spot May closed off five points at 64.28 cents, in the upper third of its 101-point range from up 26 points at 64.59 cents — narrowly a new high for the move — to down 75 points at 63.58 cents.
December settled down nine points at 63.85 cents, in the upper quarter of its tight 68-point range from 63.98 to 63.30 cents. For the week, July advanced 261 points or 4.2% and December gained 252 points.
The market will be closed Monday in observance of Memorial Day.
Volume slowed to an estimated 25,564 lots from 43,011 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 14,635 lots or 34% and EFP 225 lots. Options volume totaled 3,000 calls and 6,520 puts.
The latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission on-call report showed extremely light activity took place in the July delivery last week.
Mills priced only 63 lots to trim their unpriced position in July to 20,715 lots and producers fixed a mere three lots to nudge theirs down to 3,460 lots. The net call difference thus eased down 60 lots to 17,255, which was 17.75% of JulyΆs declining open interest, compared with 17.18% a week earlier. Mills had 5.99 lots to price for each one by producers.
Elsewhere, mills added 2,157 lots in December, 1,535 lots in March and 485 lots in May 2017, while producers added 296 lots in December and 66 lots in March.
On the international scene, a new estimate by the Cotton Association of India pegged the crop in the worldΆs largest cotton producer at 34.15 million bales of 170 kilograms or 26.68 million 480-pound bales, based on conditions around May 1.
This is up slightly from the CAI estimate the prior month of 34.1 million bales of 170 kilos or 26.64 million 480-pound bales and compares with USDAΆs May estimate of 26.8 million bales.
India and China are forecast by USDA to account for nearly half the world cotton crop in 2016-17. Production is projected to rise 4.5% in India to 28 million bales and to fall 5.5% in China to 22.5 million bales.
Back on the U.S. scene, 2015-crop upland outstanding loans fell 22,379 running bales to 1.049 million RB in the week ended Monday, USDA figures showed. Repayments totaled 22,388 RB and entries were nine bales.
Upland cotton under loan included 153,428 RB of Form A issued to individual growers and 895,825 RB of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.
Futures open interest expanded 2,890 lots Thursday to 199,304, with JulyΆs down 1,099 lots to 95,799 and DecemberΆs up 3,708 lots to 85,869. Cert stocks grew 1,160 bales to 95,362. Awaiting review were 4,312 bales.
