Trend-following funds boosted their net longs 4,556 lots to the second highest on record. Cash online grower sales fell to 4,274 bales and business sales declined to 907 bales on The Seam.
Cotton futures ticked slightly lower in early dealings Monday, extending the prior-session losses in 2016-17 marketing year contracts.
March hovered off 24 points to 76.17 cents, trading within a tight 40-point range from 76.50 to 76.10 cents on a contract volume of 2,729 lots. May dropped 20 points to 76.87 cents on a turnover of 1,579 lots, July ticked down 16 points to 77.61 cents and December was little changed, off two ticks at 73.97 cents.
Fund rolling of longs from March continues this week. The big Goldman Sachs roll is scheduled to begin Tuesday. The three-day Jim Rogers fund roll ended Thursday.
In outside markets, U.S. dollar index futures gained 0.305 to 100.145, while Dow Jones futures lost 30 points and S&P futures 3.75 points. Crude oil slipped 9 cents $53.75, Brent crude slid 26 cents to $56.89 and February gold gained $9.70 to $1,228.20. March corn was up 0.5%, March soybeans 1%, March Chicago wheat 0.3% and March Kansas City wheat 0.8%.
Earlier, Asian stock markets closed higher, up 0.3% in Japan’s Nikkei 225, about 1% in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, 0.5% in China’s Shanghai Composite Index and 0.2% in South Korea’s KOSPI. The Stocks Europe 600 was little changed.
China’s Zhengzhou cotton futures finished on triple-digit gains and prices settled higher on the China National Cotton Exchange.
Meanwhile, trend-following funds boosted their net longs 4,556 lots to 104,264 in cotton futures-options combined during the week ended Tuesday, according to traders-commitments data reported by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after the close Friday.
That was their second highest net long position on record, behind only 110,898 lots as of Jan. 10. Index funds increased their net longs 1,632 lots to 66,908, while traders with non-reportable positions hiked theirs 927 lots to 10,008.
Commercials sold a net 5,260 lots to boost their net shorts to 181,180, adding 10,838 shorts along with 5,578 longs. Prices during the reporting week gained 137 points, basis March.
In cotton futures Friday, March lost 50 points on inside-day price action but gained 156 points for the week. It has advanced three weeks in a row and five of the last six.
The March-May spread traded from 58 to 75 points carry and settled flat on a volume of 10,361 lots. May-July traded from 61 to 75 points carry and widened nine points to finish at 70 points on 4,211 lots.
The inverted old-crop July, new-crop December traded from premiums of 479 points on July to 358 points and narrowed 81 points to settle at 378 points on 2,401 lots.
In cash online trading, grower-to-business sales fell to 4,274 bales from 13,465 bales on The Seam. Prices slipped to an average of 71.36 cents from 72.45 cents, reflecting a drop to 18.32 cents from 19.06 cents in premiums over loan repayment rates.
Business-to-business sales declined to 907 bales from 2,325 bales on prices averaging 72.05 cents, up from 70.51 cents, and premiums of 19.21 cents, down from 21.90 cents.
The Cotlook A Index of world values gained 50 points to 86.25 cents, widening the premium over the prior-session March futures settlement by three points to 9.34 cents. The index gained 270 points from a week earlier.
