Mills added 1,230 lots to their unpriced on-call position in 2016-17 crop-year months. Export commitments stand at 75% of the new forecast. Gins processed 84% of the crop prior to Jan. 1.
Cotton futures chopped within a tight range on both sides of unchanged and finished a bit lower ahead of a three-day weekend Friday.
Spot March eased seven points to settle at 72.27 cents, trading within a 75-point range from up 41 points at 72.75 to down 34 points at 72 cents. It lost 172 points for the week.
May closed down nine points to 72.76 cents and December dropped 20 points to 70.90 cents, finishing with losses for the week of 152 and 67 points, respectively.
The market will be closed Monday in observance of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Volume slowed to an estimated 24,517 lots from 36,498 lots the prior session when spreads accounted for 17,619 lots or 48%, EFP nine lots and EFS also nine lots. Options volume totaled 2,103 calls and 2,052 puts.
Mills added a net 1,230 lots to their unpriced on-call position in 2016-17 marketing year contract months last week and producers priced a net 604 lots, according to data reported by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after the close Thursday.
The unfixed positions rose to 88,723 lots on the mill side and dipped to 8,225 lots on the producer side, resulting in the net call difference rising 1,834 lots to 80,498, which was 33.6% of the open interest. The unpriced mill position outweighed that of producers by a ratio of 10.79:1.
In spot March, mills priced 1,022 lots and producers fixed 1,201 lots, reducing their unfixed positions there to 38,274 and 3,937 lots, respectively. The net call difference increased 179 lots to 34,337, 19.4% of MarchΆs open interest.
Earlier Thursday, USDAΆs surprising supply-demand report overshadowed larger-than-expected U.S. weekly export sales. All cotton 2016-17 commitments of 9.043 million running bales stand at 75% of the new export estimate. A year ago, commitments were 62% of final 2015-16 exports.
All-cotton shipments for the season of 4.231 million RB were 35% of the January export forecast, compared with 28% of final 2015-16 shipments at the corresponding point last season.
To achieve the higher estimate, shipments now need to average roughly 263,100 RB a week, while weekly sales averaging approximately 102,700 RB would match the export projection.
On the crop scene, U.S. all-cotton ginned prior to Jan. 1 totaled 13.883 million RB, according to USDA. This was up 25% from 11.092 RB processed a year earlier and 84% percent of the latest crop estimate.
Ginning of 5.82 million RB of upland in Texas, up from 4.714 million RB ginned a year ago, was 77% of the projected upland RB output.
The Texas upland crop of 7.8 million statistical 480-pound bales, up a bulging 400,000 bales from the December forecast, now is expected to top last seasonΆs production by 36%.
Statewide yields are projected at 720 pounds per acre, up from 610 pounds last year and the five-year average of 624 pounds. The harvested area is estimated at 5.2 million acres, up 16% from last season, with plantings pegged at 5.65 million acres, up 18%.
The USDAΆs National Agricultural Statistics Service will issue an end-of-season ginning report on March 9 and a final tweaking of 2016-crop acreage, yield and production figures on May 10.
Futures open interest declined 500 lots Thursday to 262,426, with MarchΆs down 1,775 lots to 170,431 and MayΆs down 599 lots to 42,381. Cert stocks declined 352 bales to 109,313. There were 178 newly certified bales and 530 bales decertified. Awaiting review were 7,458 bales.
