Cotton futures began the day being called to open unchanged to lower with the expectation being that there would be plenty more fund selling following yesterday's late collapse.
That there was and then more as Dec immediately opened around 60 lower and towards 47.00 cents in what is nowadays the norm for near delivery contract months.
March duly followed, sulking it's way down beneath 51.00 cents with all contract setting new contract lows on the opening. Trade and mill buying was found around these levels, which led to a trade buying inspired run back to the unchanged levels, having been as much as 90 lower in December.
Spread trading continued to be active today as Dec open interest is liquidated—now down to 21,085 at the start of the day. For the most of the session though things were very quiet, with spreads dominating and nearly no outright trading.
Late in the session there was an increase in fund selling, dragging prices back down towards the lows.
Adding to this everything closed on contract low closes. Estimated volume was decent at 24,233 lots. Volume of cotton classed saw weekly classings at 1.68 million bales, taking the season to date 11.7 million bales.
For the season 72.7 percent of this is of tenderable quality.
Elsewhere the CFTC reported spec futures only positions to be 21 percent short whilst futures and options combined reported at 9.2 percent short.
CCC reported that for the week some 1.267 million bales entered the loan whilst 188,761 were redeemed. Outstanding loans now total 6.7 million bales for the 06/07 crop. March continued on it's merry decline today, following Decembers lead amongst some heavy fund selling.
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