The stock markets open at this hour show little change as is the case with most US commodities.

NEWS/REPORTS/MISC

ICE Spec/Hedge & CFTC COT Reports – Per the ICE exchange, spec added 585 new longs and 4,055 new shorts for a net decrease in spec longs by 3,470 contracts.  Over the past two weeks specs have reduced their net long position a total of 7,666due to the addition of nearly 9500 new shorts from Dec 6-17. The CFTC legacy type reports show similar activity with non-commercials in futures only.  As of Tues, Dec 14, spec added 622 longs but 4,456 new shorts for a net reduction of their net long position by 3,834 contracts.  However, as was the case the preceding week, specs appear to be buying options to offset any risk in their new shorts as the futures/options report show 1,295 new longs and 1,469 new shorts. 

US Classing/Loan Data – As of Dec 16, another 931,369 running bales were classed of which 74.9% is tenderable.  For the season, 15,008,421 running bales have been classed or 85% of the NASS crop estimate of 18.27 mln statistical bales. Due in large part to Texas, the tenderable amount of the US crop has advanced to 64.4%.   The only states with a significant amount of cotton still being classed by mid-December are Texas, Ga Ca, Ok, Az and SC.   Five states though are through, Ark, La, Ms, SC and Va. 

As for loan information, 672,227 running bales entered the loan program and 510,521 were redeemed for a net in-movement of 161,706.  As of Tues, Dec 14, 4.07 mln running bales are in the loan program.  To no one’s surprise, Tx has the most cotton in the loan program, 999K bales.  Next is NC then Ga followed by Tn, Ms and Ark. Another way of viewing the amount of cotton in the loan, 3.57 mln is there by way of co-ops and the remaining 497K was entered by producers.