December lost 4% for the week. Weekly classing increased to 112,238 bales. Mills priced 4,451 lots. ChinaΆs imports fell to 435,400 bales last month.

Cotton futures settled on a new low close for the move Friday, with benchmark December finishing down 4% for the week.

December lost 98 points to close at 68.03 cents, its lowest finish since July 11 and in the lower quarter of its 189-point range from up 55 points at 69.56 to down 134 points at 67.67 cents. It shed 262 points for the week after losing 609 points last week.

Nearby October closed down 93 points to 67.57 cents, March down 88 points to 68.76 cents and December 2017 down 61 points to 67.96 cents.

Volume increased to an estimated 25,645 lots from 22,751 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 8,269 lots or 36%, EFP 555 lots and EFS 74 lots. Options volume totaled 4,417 calls and 6,935 puts.

On the crop scene, classing increased to 112,238 running bales in the South Texas area served by USDA facility at Corpus Christi during the week ended Thursday from 41,858 RB the previous week.

This brought the seasonΆs total to 197,928 RB, with tenderable cotton accounting for 84.6%. No new-crop cotton had been graded from the other 10 Agricultural Marketing Service classing offices across the belt.

The USDAΆs National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates production in the Coastal Bend at 460,000 statistical 480-pound bales, up from 201,000 bales last year, and at 255,000 bales in the early harvesting Lower Rio Grande Valley, up from 134,200 bales.

Upland loans outstanding on 2016-crop cotton rose by 4,394 RB to 8,072 RB during the week ended Monday, while repayments on 17,549 RB of 2015-crop upland left 284,742 RB under loan from last season.

Meanwhile, mills priced 4,451 lots last week to reduce their unfixed on-call position in December to 33,316 lots, according to the latest data reported by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Producers added 34 lots to nudge their unpriced December holdings up to 14,554 lots. The net call difference dropped 4,485 lots to 18,762, which was 10.51% of DecemberΆs declining open interest, down from 12.49% a week earlier. The unpriced mill position outweighed that of producers by a ratio of 2.29:1, compared with 2.6:1 the week before.

Elsewhere, mills added 1,612 lots in March and 966 lots in May, while the largest changes on the producer side were the addition of 318 lots in March and 120 lots in December 2017.

On the international scene, China imported 94,800 metric tons of cotton or 435,400 bales last month, down 10.2% from a year ago. Calendar year imports through the first seven months fell 49.5% to 525,000 metric tons or 2.41 million bales.

The USDA has estimated ChinaΆs imports at 4.5 million bales for the marketing year ended July 31, down 45.7% from 2014-15, and projected 2016-17 imports to hold at that level.

Futures open interest gained 794 lots Thursday to 236,248, with DecemberΆs down 5243 lots to 168,361 and MarchΆs up 1,180 lots to 45,808. Certified stocks declined 9,043 bales to 65,175.