Cotton Close with Friday Losses

Austin Schroeder Barchart Fri Apr 4, 5:11PM CDT
Rolls of cotton thread by Marina Ermakova via Unsplash

Cotton futures posted Friday losses of 115 to 144 points in the nearbys, with May down 354 points this week. Crude oil futures were $4.63/barrel lower, as the US dollar index was back up $0.821 on the day.

In response to President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, China issued a retaliatory tariff of 34% on all US goods overnight. Vietnam has taken a different approach, offering to cut tariffs to 0, which gave the cotton market a boost of the session lows.

Friday’s CFTC Commitment of Traders report showed managed money cutting back 7,176 contracts to their net short in cotton futures and options as of April 1. They held a net short of 66,634 contracts by Tuesday. 

Export Sales data has total cotton commitments at 10.438 million RB, down 4% from last year. That is 101% of the USDA report, with the average pace at 102%. 

The Cotlook A Index was back down 50 points on April 3 at 79.60 cents/lb. ICE cotton stocks were unchanged on 4/2, with the current level of certified stocks at 14,488 bales. USDA’s Adjusted World Price (AWP) was back up 158 points on Thursday afternoon to 55.22 cents/lb.

May 25 Cotton  closed at 63.36, down 144 points,

Jul 25 Cotton  closed at 64.56, down 115 points,

Dec 25 Cotton  closed at 66.16, down 139 points


On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.