Open positions in cotton futures continue to rise to new all-time highs almost daily

24 Mar '07

3 min read

SFS Futures - Swiss Financial Services Closing Cotton Commentary for March 23rd As attractive as a 135 point range for the week might sound, unfortunately it is misleading. Cotton prices tried rallying early Tuesday off of a bullish but overly simplistic story in the Wall Street Journal and wound up getting in trouble by the end of the session.

After that, the best that cotton prices could muster was a 45 point range the balance of the week. All from the lower levels of the cent and a half range cotton has been stuck in for the last four weeks Prices levels were jammed in by commercials on both ends of the tight range.

In between were locals picking each others pockets and spec-on-spec activity and of course, switches and spreads. Volume in the pit was estimated at 9,640 with another 3,538 trading on the screen. Not bad but also misleading as most of the volume came from spreads with heightened interest in the December contract as the planting intentions near. May closed 5 higher for the week but 64 points lower for the week.

July gained 4 points on the day but 38 lower for the week. New crop December, on the other hand, lost 6 points Friday but was still 4 points higher for the week. However, the tight range is certainly not because of lack of public interest or opinions on price outlook. Open positions in cotton futures continue to rise to new all-time highs almost daily.

During the first four days of this past week, there were 7,015 new positions added bringing total open interest to a whopping 219,143 Through Friday morning, Certificated stocks had built to 632,259 with another 33,560 awaiting review by the classing board. This is the cotton that is eligible to be delivered against the May contract should the owner of the cotton decide to do so.

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