Weekly Report: Cotton Situation is Stable Domestically during Spring Festival

Domestic cotton market was inactive around Spring Festival. The week before the holiday (26th/30thJanuary), textiles and ginners had already suspended business, CC Index 3128B settled by 19,442 Yuan/ton, 23 Yuan up over the week. The week after holiday (7th-8th February), CC Index 3128B settled at 19,444 Yuan per ton, 2 Yuan up over the week.
After Spring Festival holiday, reserve cotton auction restarted, for 7th and 8th February, the auction target was 81,760 ton, 26,310 ton was sold by transaction percentage of 32.2%. By 8th February, 1,142,980 ton of reserve cotton was offered in auction, and 430,260 ton was sold by transaction percentage of 37.6%, among which the domestic cotton transaction percentage was 33.7%. Reserve cotton purchase and warehouse delivery inspection will restored on 17th February.
On 8th February, National Cotton Council of America (NCC) released Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey, projecting US cotton producers intend to plant 11.26 million acres of cotton this spring, up 8.2% Y/Y; 11.04 million acres of inland cotton, up by 8.1% and 0.22 million acres of long staple cotton, up by 11.8%. The expected abandonment for the United States at roughly 15 percent and U.S. average yield per harvested acre of 819 pounds, applying each state's yield to its 2014 projected harvested acres generates a cotton crop of 16.37 million bales. If realized, that would be an increase of 3.2 million bales from the current USDA estimate of the 2013.