Cotton prices continued their march upward with another 115 point gain for the March contract on Thursday. Even still, March futures were 60 points off their session highs for the close. New crop contracts also finished in the black, though by just 19 to 25 points. Dec is now at just a 19 point premium to spot. 

Weekly cotton bookings were 160,465 RBs for the week that ended 2/8. That was a 2% drop wk/wk, but was an 11% increase vs the same week last year. USDA listed the week’s shipment at 276k MT. That brough the yearly total to 1.82m RBs – a 3% lag from last year. Adding the unshipped sales has commitments at 10.31m RBs – a 4% lead vs last season’s pace. 

This morning’s Ag Outlook Forum from USDA had cotton acreage estimated at 11 million acres this for this spring. That is a 7.5% increase vs. a year ago. Analysts surveyed ahead of the report expected a modest 300-400,000 acre increase vs. 2023. 

The Cotlook A Index for 2/14 was back up by 65 points to 99.5 cents/lb. The AWP is 70.04 cents/lb. It will be updated on Thursday.

Mar 24 Cotton  closed at 94.63, up by 115 points  

May 24 Cotton  closed at 95.31, up by 93 points

Jul 24 Cotton  closed at 95.33, up by 94 points

Dec 24 Cotton  closed at 84.84, up by 25 points