Futures were pretty much a non event today, it is hardly worth making the commentary on them. Prices were called to open unchanged, came in 1 lower than unchanged, then traded an anemic range of 53 points total before settling 4 points higher in Dec, 24 in March and 35 in May.
The settlements may suggest that the spreads widened out considerably but this was by no means the case. The spreads traded quite narrowly for the most part, between 320nand 330 for most of the day in the Dec / March, despite settling around 350.
It was a quiet close to a fairly eventful week, with the USDA having made what could have been the largest October adjustment in history, the world ending stocks gaining 5.5 million bales. Volume was naturally thin today at an estimated at just 6,000 lots.
This morning's US export sales and shipments figures were quite impressive with new sales a combined 346,700 running bales. Mexico was the best buyer at 85,300 bales, whilst Colombia, Thailand, Indonesia, China and Turkey contributing.
Export shipments were not that strong, with just 114,900 bales crossing. Technically the December is still in a broad down trend channel, though has managed to find some support at the lower barrier of this trend channel around the 48 cents level.
Today's indecisive doji session will likely keep the market in poise early next week, as the fundamentals in the USDA report indicate lower prices, however much of this price action is accounted for over the past 3 months.
marketing@alchempro.com
