Cotton futures continued a long march downward — at a slower pace — last week as big Asian mills appeared mostly waiting before booking additional supplies.

Benchmark December fell 583 points during the week ended Thursday to close at 98.63 cents, just below the middle of its 899-point range from 103.45 to 94.46 cents. This followed a 906-point loss the prior week. (The loss reported for that week in last weekΆs column was incorrect.)

December posted the low — its lowest print since Dec. 27 — on Monday and closed the week less than a penny from its July 15 finish. Some analysts saw the market as attempting to consolidate and build a base of support but said plenty of sellers still seemed to emerge on rallies.

The low was down 50.20 cents or 34.7 percent from the contract high on April 7. December has lost ground six straight calendar weeks, falling 1,835 points in just the two weeks ended July 15.

Cash trading on The SeamΆs business-to-business exchange fell to a mere 265 bales from 2,728 bales the previous week. Prices averaged 88.33 cents, reflecting premiums over loan redemption rates of 39.03 cents. No cotton has traded on the grower exchange since June 24.

News that manufacturing activity shrank for the first time in a year in China, the worldΆs top raw cotton consumer and importer, reinforced demand fears along with disappointing new-crop U.S. weekly export sales.

However, while old-crop cancellations have exceeded gross sales for 16 of the last 17 reporting weeks for net reductions totaling 778,200 running bales, net new-crop sales over the same period have produced a combined net gain for both marketing years of 855,500 running bales.

Net old-crop cancellations of 6,500 running bales during the week ended July 14 pared 2010-11 commitments to 14.684 million running bales or 15.124 million statistical bales. This is about 4 percent above the USDA shipping estimate.

For 2010-11 and 2011-12 combined, net sales totaled 24,600 running bales, against net cancellations the prior week of 47,600 bales.

Old-crop commitments were 1.158 million running bales or about 9 percent more than sales a year ago, though the lead narrowed for the week by 99,200 bales. Outstanding sales declined to 1.149 million running bales or 1.183 million statistical bales.

All-cotton shipments of 120,400 running bales nudged exports for the season up to 13.535 million running bales or 13.941 million statistical bales. This is about 96 percent of the USDA estimate.

With two-plus weeks left in the crop year, roughly 530,000 running bales remained to be shipped to achieve the estimate. Shipments topped year-ago exports by 2.473 million running bales or about 22 percent.

Net new-crop sales of 31,100 running bales brought all-cotton commitments for 2011-12 to 6.152 million running bales or 6.337 million statistical bales. This is about 53 percent of the USDA projection.

Commitments for the marketing year beginning Aug. 1 were 2.946 million running bales ahead of forward bookings a year ago. New-crop commitments have climbed by 1.634 million running bales during the last 17 reporting weeks.

On the U.S. crop scene, squaring maintained a steady pace to advance 11 percentage points and cotton setting bolls quickened to expand also by 11 points during the week ended last Sunday.

The crop was 71 percent squared, behind by a narrowed 14 points from a year ago and eight points from average, while 31 percent had set bolls, behind by eight points and three points, respectively.

Crop ratings improved slightly, with poor to very poor down two points to 40 percent, fair up two points to 32 percent and good to excellent unchanged at 28 percent. Poor to very poor cotton still ranked at a record high for this time of year, exceeding the prior high of 33 percent in 1998.

A year ago, ratings featured a record low 7 percent poor to very poor, 25 percent fair and 68 percent good to excellent.

The Texas ratings also improved a bit as poor to very poor dropped two points to 57 percent, fair gained up a point to 31 percent and good also rose a point to 12 percent. Still none was considered excellent.

The Dow Jones national crop index gained a point to 77.8 percent of normal, down from 104.3 a year ago.

In other developments, the speculative net long futures position climbed by 1.1 points to 8.9 percent of the open interest on short-covering during the week ended July 15, according to the exchangeΆs spec-hedge report.

Speculators owned 40.2 percent of the longs, up 1.2 points, and 31.3 percent of the shorts, up 0.1-point. Spec holdings fell 417 lots to 53,868 on the long side and 1,462 lots to 42,001 on the short side. Net spec longs totaled 11,867 lots, up 1,045 lots.

Trade interests covered 3,840 short hedges and lifted 4,885 long hedges. This reduced their hedge shorts to 92,007 lots and their hedge longs to 80,140 lots. Open interest fell 5,302 lots to 134,008 and then climbed to 135,852 lots going into ThursdayΆs session.

Meanwhile, the National Cotton Council joined 33 other organizations urging President Obama and House and Senate leaders to seek prompt action on the debt ceiling-deficit reduction negotiations in a manner that does not require disproportionate cuts in agriculture and related programs.

Markets were rocked early in the week by lack of progress on a debt deal in the United States along with ongoing debt issues in Europe. Fears subsequently eased but anxiety lingered.

The coalition pointed out that agriculture already absorbed a $6 billion reduction last year and said it is prepared to take a proportionate share of budget cuts provided everything is on the table.

The Senate and House Agriculture Committees must be allowed to determine how any further reductions are made, the coalition of agriculture and agribusiness organizations said.