Old crop cotton futures closed the limited 4 cents lower on Thursday. Expanded limits for tomorrow is a full nickel/lb. For April contracts, the limit loss left prices at the lowest level for the calendar year, pushing the board back to late December price levels. New crop futures were also 347 to 392 points weaker.

The weekly Export Sales data release from USDA showed 271,194 RBs were sold in the week ending March 18. That was down 38% from last week and was 21% below sales from the same week last year. cotton shipments were confirmed at 313,514 RBs on the same week, which brought the accumulated export to 9.146m RBs. That is 16% ahead of last season’s pace and remains the largest cotton shipment pace now through 33 weeks.

USDA’s 3/25 DSQ report showed just 279 bales were sold at spot. The Cotlook A index for March 24 was down another penny to 89.50 cents/lb. USDA’s FSA lowered the AWP for cotton by 2.9 cents to 68.55 cents/lb.

May 21 Cotton  closed at 78.44, down 400 points,

Jul 21 Cotton  closed at 79.52, down 400 points,

Dec 21 Cotton  closed at 76.55, down 383 points