Cotton futures closed out Friday with contracts down 5 to 45 points, as USDA’s production cut didn’t go quite far enough to offset an export cut. The outside markets are mixed, with the crude oil down 35 cents /barrel and the US dollar index 53 points lower.

NASS’s bi-monthly Cotton Ginnings report showed a total of 1.146 million RB of cotton ginned as of October 1, up 473,933 RB the middle of September and the largest for this time since 2019. 

The monthly update to the Crop Production report from NASS showed that yield was cut by 18 lbs/acre this month to 789 lbs, mainly due to a 176 lb/ac reduction to Georgia, while Texas was up 38 lbs. That helped to trim the production total by 310,000 bales to 14.2 million. NASS did note that while the producers’ surveys came after Hurricane Helene made landfall, “the full impact from the storm may not be reflected until future reports.” Due to a 100,000 bale reduction to domestic use and 300,000 few forecasted exports, US ending stocks for 2024/25 were revised 100,000 bales higher to 4.1 million.

On the world side of the cotton balance sheet, the 2024/25 stocks projection was down 160,000 bales to 76.33 million, mainly helped by a lower carryover. 

Spec funds in cotton futures and options added trimmed 224 contracts from their net short as of 10/8. That net short was at 11,923 contracts as of Tuesday.

The Seam reported 1,000 bales of online sales on October 10 at an average price of 74.40 cents/lb. ICE cotton stocks were unchanged on Thursday, leaving 265 bales of certified stocks. The Cotlook A Index was steady on October 9 at 84.00 cents/lb. The USDA Adjusted World Price (AWP) was trimmed by another 40 points on Thursday to 60.41 cents/lb. It is good for the next week.

Mar 25 Cotton  closed at 74.33, down 42 points,

May 25 Cotton  closed at 75.71, down 40 points,

Jul 25 Cotton  closed at 76.57, down 37 points