The week ending Friday, May 13 saw the most active Jul’22 ICE cotton follow a gyrating sideways pattern (see chart above courtesy of Barchart.com).  Jul’22 and Dec’22 cotton on the ICE settled Friday at 145.20 and 127.99 cents per pound, respectively.  Further out Dec’23 cotton settled at 94.49 cents per pound.  Chinese cotton prices continued flat this week and below the rising A-index and ICE futures.

Cotton-specific influences this week included weak U.S. cotton export sales and strong shipments.  USDA released their milestone May WASDE projections, which predictably showed a tight new crop supply/demand balance for U.S. cotton.  U.S. cotton planting progress was on par with recent history.   The moisture situation in Texas continued hot and very dry, although some areas have benefited from recent rainfall.

ICE cotton futures open interest bottomed and recovered across the week.  The similar track of futures price settlements suggests a mix of buying and selling behavior.   The selling early in the week was reflected in the regular Tuesday snapshot (through May 10) of hedge fund short covering (3,614 fewer contracts) and outright hedge fund shorting (703 more contracts) in addition 2,008 fewer index fund longs, week over week.

CBOT corn and soybean futures prices were flat to higher across the week, while KC wheat futures had a more distinct up-shift following the WASDE report.  The U.S. dollar index was flat and then trended higher to 19-year highs.

For more details and data on Old Crop and New Crop fundamentals, plus other near term influences, follow these links (or the drop-down menus above) to those sub-pages.