Another quiet day for the futures market, with little over the weekend input to influence prices significantly. The unchanged call on the open soon turned into a 10 higher market, but there was little if any momentum on the opening, and the session highs were soon after put in place.
Loose settlements on the Friday close ( likely locals padding their bear spread positions ) soon saw the spreads narrow in, especially the December / March which narrowed into 325 March premium.
Volume continued very light throughout the session however, and with out any great range ( total 45 points ) prices closed relatively unchanged, the Dec up 17 and the march down 2. Estimated volume was expectedly light at 6,834 lots.
Today's US crop conditions showed a week on week improvement, with the 15 state average index rising from 85.7 to 86.5 over the last week.
Improvements were noted in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. The US crop has now 92 percent of bolls open, whilst 39 percent has been harvested compared to the 5 year average of 34 percent.
Tomorrow's spec hedge report should see a slight increase in spec short position, possible to around 9-10 percent net short.
Technically the December contract continues to adhere to it's bearish down trend channel, though has begun to lose momentum over the last couple of sessions.
Leading into the end of last week, the contract was quite oversold from both a momentum as well as trending indicators.
Currently price patterns are indicating some stabilization of prices back within the overall trend channel. Resistance will be very heavy around the 51.00 level as it is 50.00 level.
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