Cotton prices spent time on both sides of UNCH on Thursday, but ultimately closed 6 to 63 points in the black led by the March contract. Old crop cotton set new highs for the move and are trading near Sep-Oct price levels. 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 2/7 Cotlook A Index was 96 cents flat, up by another 40 points. The AWP increased 2.4 cents to 70.04 cents/lb in the weekly FSA update. ICE certified stocks were only 999 bales as of 2/6.

Mar 24 Cotton  closed at 89.1, up 63 points,

May 24 Cotton  closed at 89.68, up 38 points,

Jul 24 Cotton  closed at 89.92, up 33 points