Thursday’s cotton market is trading back to 4 to 36 points in the black after dropping from the initial strength at 9am Central. New crop futures are still 20 points in the red at midday. USDA raised the cash average price for cotton by a penny to 77 cents/lb.  

The monthly WASDE update showed a 150k bale lighter domestic cotton use, now at 1.75 million bales. Exports, however, were raised by 200k bales to offset. On net ending stocks tightened by 100k to 2.8 million in the report.  

Cotton Ginnings data from NASS had the season’s total at 11.75 million running bales through Feb 1. That is still 15% behind last year’s pace, as the slowest ginning pace since 09/10.  

Weekly FAS data showed 284k RBs of cotton were booked during the week that ended 2/1. That was down from the 349k RBs sold the week prior but was an 8% increase from the same week last year. Cotton exports were also down for the week, with 249k RBs shipped, but were up 18% from the same week last year. USDA had cotton commitments 4.4% ahead of last year’s pace with 10.15m RBs on the books.  

The Cotlook A Index was up by another 60 points to 95.85 cents. USDA’s weekly Cotton Market Review had 30,988 bales sold for the week with an average price of 81.35 cents/lb. The AWP is 67.64 cents. ICE certified stocks were only 999 bales as of 2/6. 

Mar 24 Cotton  is at 88.61, up 14 points, 

May 24 Cotton  is at 89.29, down 1 point, 

Jul 24 Cotton  is at 89.5, down 9 points