Caught some interesting price action in cotton yesterday. US cotton futures were up solid across the board, closing 10 to 19 points higher depending on the contract month. Pretty decent hold considering the USDA dropped their crop report and actually raised yield estimates by 10 lbs per acre. That pushed total production up to 14.27 million bales, which normally would've weighed on prices, but the market seemed to shrug it off.

The numbers that caught my eye were in the WASDE adjustments. They bumped projected ending stocks up 200,000 bales to 4.5 million, which is more than I expected. Cash prices got trimmed by 2 cents to 60 cents per pound. Meanwhile, crude was down 49 cents to $58.39 and the dollar index climbed higher, so there's a lot of cross-market stuff happening.

Looking at the ginning data, US cotton ginnings hit 8.645 million running bales by December 1st, down about 10% from the year before. The Cotlook A Index dropped 25 points to 73.95 cents, and ICE certified stocks stayed flat at around 13,971 bales. Specs were trimming positions too - cut about 10,300 contracts from their short side that week.

Mar 26 cotton closed at 63.86 up 18 points, May at 64.92 up 16, and Jul at 65.91 up 11. Not the most explosive move but solid enough given the bearish production report. The Adjusted World Price came in at 51.28 cents, up 51 points from the previous week. Interesting to see US cotton holding its ground with all these headwinds.