ICE cotton Dec contract highest since March

Monday’s supply & demand report by USDA projected a tight supply situation with the US production down by nearly half million stat bales, and ending stocks down by 100k bales. World ending stocks were also down to the extend of over half million bales, and a smaller crop is expected with the biggest drop in China of one million bales.

Open interest in cotton futures and options combined rose by 20% for the week ending August 13th, and both large and small specs increased their net long positions in the commodity with trade taking the short side. Cotton futures are likely to challenge the nearby resistance area around 94 cents in the coming weeks.

The friendly commodity market remained on track moving higher this week. The USDA report served as a stimulus even though there was no huge change in the numbers. However, the technical break out last week kept getting support and we will need to find some heavy producer fixations scale up in order to stomp this rally.

This should come soon but based on the close this week would not be surprised to see some more room to the upside. Equity markets are sliding lower which may apply some pressure but overall we have a lot of uncertainty hanging over the crop. However, mill demand is very quiet so we should see a correction sooner than later.