The current allocation of volume, open interest, and a lot more cotton futures information, can be found on the ICE futures website under “Featured Reports”.  Volume (viewed above as the green line) is defined as the total daily number of contracts traded in a daily session. The level of volume is often used to gauge the strength of continuing or changing trends. Typical cotton daily volume bounces around between 10,000 and 25,000 contracts.  During fund rolling periods like this week, volumes are usually much higher.  Through Thursday, April 10, ICE futures showed above average volumes between 106,247 contracts (on April 10) and 171,295 contracts (on April 4).  The May’25 and Jul’25 contracts had 43% and 42% of the volume, respectively, as of April 10.

Open interest (the red line above) refers to the number of active positions at the end of the day (not double counting both the buyer and seller). Open interest by contract has a similar front month concentration as does volume, e.g., the May’25 and Jul’25 contracts had 19%, and 43% of the open interest, respectively, as of April 10.  Open interest does not fluctuate as much as daily volume, but there are patterns where sharp surges or declines in open interest are associated with sudden rallies or sell-offs, often in high volume.  For the week ending April 10, the day-to-day shifts in ICE cotton open interest showed a steady decline.  Coupled with the slight uptrend in price settlements, this has the appearance of short covering.