While the cotton market continues to react to headlines, this week brought a dose of fundamentals with the release of the 2025/26 supply and demand outlook. With uncertainty still hanging over the market, where does it go from here? Get QuickTake’s read on the week’s events in five minutes.
If cotton prices are to improve, it’s got to start sometime, somehow. If improvement is to be in our future, the underlying economic fundamentals must begin to swing in that direction and market uncertainties diminish.
The forecast for 2025/26 U.S. cotton shows a small increase in production, higher exports,beginning and ending stocks, and unchanged consumption compared to 2024/25. Planted area is expected to be 9.87 million acres based on the March 31 Prospective Plantings report. With recent precipitation in the Southwest, abandonment is projected to be lower than average resulting in a U.S. harvested area of 8.37 million acres, higher than the 7.81 million harvested in 2024/25.
The year 1965 gave us the song “Catch Us if You Can.” Reference to those lyrics fits the scenario of a market continuing higher and higher. Maybe just the mention of it will seed a price jump in the market.
Market Movement from 05th May 2025 to 10th May 2025.
• NY July started the week with a strong gain but was unable to sustain the momentum. External market pressures and macroeconomic factors dragged the market down. As a result, NY July ended the week with a loss of 180 points on a week-over-week basis.