For the week ending Friday, November 8, the nearby Dec’24 ICE cotton futures contract gradually trended lower, higher, and then lower again (see chart above courtesy of Barchart.com). Dec’24 ICE cotton settled Friday at 70.98 cents per pound while the new crop Dec’25 settled at 73.23 cents per pound. Chinese cotton prices followed a flat/static day-to-day pattern, as did the A-Index of world cotton prices.
In other markets, nearby CBOT corn and soybean futures, as well as KC wheat futures, traded lower earlier in the week and higher over the second half of the week. U.S. dollar index traded flat going into the Federal Reserve’s mid-week meeting, and then reacted strongly higher to the Fed’s interest rate cut. Other macro influences (i.e., GDP, inflation, and interest rate policy) showed bullish reaction to the U.S. election day results.
Cotton-specific influences this week included fairly neutral supply/demand adjustments from USDA, in addition to improved U.S. export sales. The pace of 2024/25 export shipments remained below the needed weekly average pace to reach USDA’s target level of exports, though this is not unusual for this supply-dominated time of the year. In terms of weather, this week saw rainy weather over the broader southern plains region as well as parts of the southeastern piedmont.
Daily levels of ICE cotton open interest fluctuated higher and lower across the week ending November 7, in conjunction with flat/static price settlements and high volume (the latter from fund rolling). Speculative positioning was mixed in the last week. As of Tuesday, November 5 (released Friday, November 8) the weekly snapshot of speculative positioning showed 2,913 more hedge fund longs and 87 fewer hedge fund shorts, week over week. The weekly adjustment to to index fund net long position was a 3,186 contract cut.
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.