Large unpriced July on-call mill sales offered support. Export commitments edged above 100% of the USDA estimate and shipments remained above the pace needed to make the forecast.
Cotton futures finished with triple-digit gains Friday, trading on the plus side throughout the session and snapping a four-day losing streak amid spread-laced activity.
Spot July settled up 105 points to 63.92 cents, in the upper quarter of its 105-point range from up 19 points at 63.06 to up 124 points at 64.11 cents. It posted the session low in the first 30 minutes overnight and closed above ThursdayΆs high.
December closed up 124 points to 63.91 cents, just off the high of its 114-point range from 62.81 to 63.95 cents. It settled above highs of the prior two days and at a five-session high finish.
The market finished mixed for the week, with July down 36 points and December up six points.
Sharply lower U.S. dollar index futures, which traded down 1.485 or 1.6% to 95.565 against a basket of currencies just after the cotton market closed, may have helped the cotton rebound.
Volume increased to an estimated 36,280 lots from 29,995 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 16,770 lots or 56% and EFS 101 lots. Options volume totaled 3,467 calls and 1,745 puts.
Large unfixed on-call mill sales based in July continued to offer support on the heels of the latest report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Mills priced 754 lots last week and producers fixed 642 lots, trimming their open July call positions to 19,961 lots (1.996 million bales) and 2,818 lots, respectively.
The net call difference dipped 112 lots to 17,143 lots, which was 18.25% of JulyΆs declining open interest, compared with 17.75% a week earlier. The unpriced mill position outweighed that of producers by a ratio of 7.08:1, up from 5.99:1.
Mills added 698 lots in December and producers added 1,651 lots, raising their unfixed positions there to 18,814 and 13,726 lots, respectively. Across the board, unpriced positions rose by 1,471 lots to 60,791 on the mill side and by 1,511 lots to 22,233 on the producer side.
Support also may have stemmed partly from U.S. weekly export sales coming in around the top end of expectations and shipments remaining above the pace needed to achieve the USDA estimate.
All-cotton sales for shipment this season slipped to 134,500 running bales from 145,200 RB the week before but narrowed the lag behind year-ago commitments for the fifth consecutive week.
Commitments reached 8.77 million RB, 2.174 million RB or still about 20% below year-ago bookings. The USDA shipments estimate of 9 million statistical bales also is 80% of last seasonΆs exports. Commitments stand at just over 100% of the export estimate.
All-cotton shipments of 251,400 RB, down slightly from 254,700 RB the week before, hiked the total for the season to 6.971 million RB, about 80% of the USDA forecast. A year ago, shipments were 82% of final exports.
To achieve the estimate, shipments need to average roughly 195,400 RB a week over the nine weeks remaining in the marketing year.
All-cotton sales for shipment next season of 76,100 RB boosted 2016-17 commitments to 1.438 million RB, up 113,000 RB from forward bookings a year ago.
Meanwhile, U.S. 2015-crop upland loans outstanding fell 268,325 RB to 780,928 RB during the week ended Monday, according to the latest USDA figures. Repayments were made on 268,501 RB and entries were 176 RB.
Upland cotton under loan included 140,715 RB of Form A issued to individual growers and 640,203 RB of Form G issued to marketing cooperatives or loan servicing agents.
Futures open interest fell 1,702 lots Thursday to 199,493, with JulyΆs down 3,306 lots to 86,462 and DecemberΆs up 1,108 lots to 93,480. Cert stocks grew 1,143 bales to 108,874. Awaiting review were 2,654 bales.
