Today is first notice day for the July cotton contract. Nearly all the 1,293 delivery notices issued for today were issued by Allenberg. Cargill stopped 75 percent of the notices with Dunavant stopping another 16 percent. However, as fast as the July contract is liquidating, the delivery period could be a non-event.
After trading lower on the ICE early Wednesday following beneficial rains and revelation of a big jump in speculative longs, prices turned higher and eventually erupted as bullish option strategies and fund buying poured into the pit. The mid week explosion briefly touched limit up for the first time in years.
The December contract, which posted contract lows just five weeks ago on May 14th, came within 163 points of its life of contract high set back in February 2006 – a span of over 1,200 points in five weeks.
December cotton has the distinction of now having the largest open interest than any single month of cotton in history. December's open interest is nearly as many as the entire market a year ago and over 60,000 contracts MORE than the entire market in June of 2005.
Following Wednesdays sharp spike up, prices backed up but refusing to exhibit any real vulnerability and at times grudgingly. Although well off the weeks highs, the spot July still ended the week 97 points higher while December cotton ended the period 129 points higher.
In other markets, the CRB lost 500 points last week. The bulls who rode up one of the biggest grain rallies in decades the week before had little time to enjoy their fortunes as the elusive weather premiums began to vanish. Both soybeans and corn lost 50 cents a bushel while wheat gave back 13 to 25 cents depending upon the exchange.
Somewhat offsetting the grains were, unfortuately energy prices as crude edged to the highest level in months. Fortuately, gasoline did not. Precious metals were mostly steady.
It was a rough week for investors as the Dow Industrials lost 2.1 percent, the S&P 500 2 percent and the Nasdaq 1.4 percent. Stocks had closed higher 13 consecutive Friday's ended the week with a very sharp drop that amounted to over half the entire weeks losses.
However, even with last weeks losses, both the Dow and Nasdaq are up more than seven percent for the year and the S&P 500 by almost six percent.
The spec/hedge report last week showed that the previous weeks gains were mostly short covering. An argument can be made that the spec community is just now beginning to really build a long position and this during a period that Chinese mills are scrambling for supplies to last until new crop becomes available.
This should translate into a plethora of speculative and fund buyers competing with commercials on setbacks.
