The week ending Friday, August 29 saw ICE cotton futures trade trend lower, bottom out, and then end the week with a speed bump (see chart above courtesy of Barchart.com). The Dec’25 contracted ended up settling down three quarters of a cent at 66.54 cents per pound. The more distant Dec’26 settled at 69.04 cents per pound. Chinese cotton prices were mixed this week while the A-Index of world cotton prices was more flat.
Other commodity futures markets showed different patterns for the week ending August 29. CBOT corn and soybean futures, as well as KC wheat futures, all followed a general down trend across the week, but with a step higher on Friday. WTI crude oil futures followed a narrowing sideways gyration. The U.S. dollar index trended higher, leveled off, then trended lower this week. Other macro influences (i.e., GDP, inflation, and interest rate policy) remained mixed in their expectation and implication for slow economic growth.
Cotton-focused market influences for the week ending August 29 included continued weekly reports of very light to moderate regional demand for U.S. cotton, along with light supplies. Weekly net sales for the 2025/26 marketing year were 183,200 bales of all cotton for the week ending August 21. While a moderate level of weekly sales, it was at least higher week over week.
Agronomic influences included widely scattered showers across the Gulf Coast region and lower Atlantic seaboard, and heavier showers over Oklahoma, Kansas, and the northern Delta. On the other side of the world, the precocious Indian monsoon has brought above average rains that likely increased plantings of summer sown crops, including cotton. It remains to be seen whether recent floods in India and Pakistan are a net benefit or detriment to summer-sown crops.
Through Wednesday, August 27, the day-to-day shifts in ICE cotton open interest were modestly increasing, while daily price settlements weakened. This had the appearance of new short positioning through mid-week. Indeed, the regular weekly (Tuesday, August 26) snapshot of speculative open interest showed short positioning with 1,968 additional hedge fund shorts, week over week, which was reinforced by 336 fewer hedge fund longs. The index trader net long position also shrank by 514 positions compared to the previous week.
The dynamics of ICE cotton futures may also represent a wet blanket on the market. It remains true that unfixed call sales (by mills) are at an historically low level, perhaps reflecting the cautionary buying on the demand side. In terms of ratios, unfixed call purchases (by suppliers) outweigh unfixed call sales by two-fold across all contracts, as of August 22. For the Dec’25 contract alone, there were three unfixed call purchases for every unfixed call sale.
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.