Welcome to John Robinson's Web Site on Cotton Marketing & Risk Management

Technical Indicators . Technical analysis involves trying to predict price movements based on earlier price patterns, calculated support/resistance levels, moving averages, retracements, and other indicators. Technical analysis may have implications for hedgers even though their market entry/exit isn't as frequent as professional traders. I don't believe that technical indicators are innately or inherently valid predictors of price behavior. But I can think of two arguments for paying attention to technical indicators. First, some suggest that technicals are a leading indicator of new, unfolding fundamental conditions. While that is possible, it is unfortunately not a very testable hypothesis. The second argument for paying attention to technicals is that to the extent that large institutional fund managers act on technical indicators (even in simply placing their buy/sell stops), then those indicators could possibly influence prices in the near term, i.e., in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As of May 3, the range of typical technical indicators were mixed/buy or consensus "strong buy" for Jul'13 cotton.

Net Position of Speculators. As the statement above suggests, the speculative fund sector has had an apparent influence on cotton and other commodity markets in recent years. One accusation (or hypothesis) is that commodity markets are driven more by financial markets than by commodity fundamentals, i.e., the financialization of commodity markets. Two big issues here involve the size of investment funds and practices like computer driven, high frequency trading. The specific role of the fund sector on cotton price volatility is discussed further here in an article written in September 2011 for the International Cotton Advisory Commission (used with permission). With the discontinuation of the ICE Spechedge report, our only remaining public source speculative positioning in the cotton market is the CFTC's Commitment of Traders report, which is released on Friday and reflects the previous Tuesday's net position. Note that the CFTC data are reported in contracts (roughly 100 bales per contract). The other unique thing about the CFTC data is that it distinguishes the trend-following hedge funds from the buy-and-hold index funds. As of May 14 , the Commitment of Traders data showed the second straight weekly increase in the hedge fund net long position, reversing three previous weeks of a declining net long position. This most recent increase was notably large as the hedge funds apparently jumped back on the bandwagon. The index fund net long position increased a little bit but has been more stable.

Volume and Open Interest. The current allocation of volume, open interest, and a lot more cotton futures information, can be found in the ICE Futures Daily Market Report for Cotton. Volume (viewed here as the green line) is defined as the total daily number of contracts traded in a session. The level of volume is often used to gauge the strength of continuing or changing trends. Typical cotton daily volume bounces around between 10,000 and 25,000 contracts. The week ending May 17 saw relatively low volumes with the Jul'13 (at 78%) and the Dec'13 (with 20%) accounting for most of it. Open interest (the red line in this graph) refers to the number of active positions at the end of the day (not double counting both the buyer and seller). It can be used to confirm the major buying and selling by the fund sector. Open interest had been steadily rising through late January, reflecting in part the positioning of hedge and index funds. Then, after fluctuating between 180,000 and 220,000 contracts, open interest declined by roughly 50,000 contracts and leveled off. More recently open interest has begun rising, and as of May 16 it und 185,465 contracts. As of May 2, very little open interest remained in the May, with 66% in the Jul'13, and 32% in the Dec'13. The combined trends in price, trends, and open interest have specific interpretations for technical analysts. This week's combination of fluctuating prices, low/static volume and rising open interest has no clear implication according to these criteria.

Currency Valuations. The value of the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies can partially explain speculative influence on cotton prices. As the U.S. dollar weakens, it can encourage flows of money into alternative financial markets like commodities. In addition, a weakening U.S. dollar also creates more direct fundamental reason for export-oriented commodities like U.S. cotton to rise in price since it becomes cheaper relative to competing foreign cotton. So there is a double reason for cotton prices to rise when the U.S. dollar weakens. Before the summer of 2011 there was a longer term down trend in the relative value of the U.S. dollar, as reflected by the ICE U.S. dollar index. The most cited reason for this trend has been the continuing near-zero interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve. The weak dollar/stronger cotton price relationship has generally been the case except during very specific situations like a weakening euro currency (e.g., late 2009/early 2010, and again in late 2011). In recent months the short term trend in the U.S. dollar index has fluctuated up and down with changes in news out of Europe and changes in U.S. economic outlook. (Note: Longer term, available economic analysis suggests little influence of euro-dollar relative valuations on U.S. agricultural exports.) This week the U.S. dollar index traded sideways, rallied, then leveled off. The mid-week strength in the U.S. dollar appeared to involve expectations of reduced quantitative easing, and also by stronger U.S. economic indicators.

Interest Rates. Interest rates are similar to currency valuations in their potential influence on commodity prices. One way of viewing this is that as interest rates (as reflected by auctions of U.S. Treasury bills) rise then the U.S. dollar tends to rise too, which in turn tends to depress the prices of dollar denominated commodities. In general, if interest rates were to rise, it would pull investment money flows away from commodities. This would likely cause a decline in agricultural and other commodity futures prices, all things being equal. There are at least two possible causes for interest rates to rise. First would be if the Federal Reserve gives up on stimulative monetary policy and starts to worry about battling inflation with higher interest rates. They would use various monetary policy tools to raise interest rates incrementally. The Federal Reserve announced on August 9 that they would not raise interest rates for two years, so this possibility is distant at best. In 2011, the Federal Reserve also tried to push interest rates lower by selling some of its intermediate bond holdings and buying longer term bonds (aka "Operation Twist"). The thinking of many economists and Central Bank watchers is that interest rates won't be raised until 2015. The second mechanism for rising interest rates is in the wake of the downgrade in U.S. bonds by Standard and Poor's. Just as if you or I were to suddenly get a bad credit score, there would be a more sudden, market-driven effect on the cost of borrowing -- it would go up, in the form of higher interest paid by the U.S. government. Effectively, this could come about via the higher return demanded by purchases of U.S. treasury bonds. It hasn't really happened in the U.S. yet since the August 5, 2011 downgrade, but it remains a possibility.

On Call Sales Report. The CFTC also publishes a report showing the quantity of cotton that has been bought or sold where the sales price has not been fixed would normally be on in a basis type contract, which are also referred to as "on call" contracts. Textile mills routinely buy cotton from merchants using "on call" contracts. When these parties enter in to the "on call" contract, a futures contract would normally be sold to hedge the transaction. Later, when the mill actually fixes the price, that short futures position would be bought back. This could be done with options or futures. To the extent that mills don't independently cover their options positions, their un-priced "on call" contracts are reflected in the current "on call" sales report, under "Unfixed Call Sales", which is reported by individual futures contract. When the unfixed call sales (to mills) outweighs the unfixed call purchases (by suppliers) the implication is that there will potentially be a lot of futures buying as mills hit the deadline of their "on call" contracts, fix the price, and the associated short hedges are bought back. As of May 10 there was still a discrepancy between the number of unfixed call sales for the July 2013 contract of almost 13,000 contracts. Another way to look at it is that there are almost four unfixed call sales for every unfixed call purchase on the July contract. Unless this discrepancy is resolved in an orderly fashion, the implication is for somewhat unexpected, "excess" buying in the July contract. As many analysts have noted, this could be a sign of some forthcoming panic buying by mills who might be scrambling for available supplies outside of China. Further out, there is also a discrepancy building in the Dec'13 contract, which right now implies almost two unfixed call sales for every unfixed call purchase in the December contract.

Certificated Stocks. The level of certificated stocks fluctuated during 2011, grew in 2012, stabilized in October, fluctuated again, and rose rapidly in January and February, before leveling off in March. It has fluctuated some since then, but as of May 16 it had risen again to 509,145 bales. Certificated stocks represent mostly merchant inventory that is in position to be delivered against short futures contract positions. The level of certificated stocks in delivery point warehouses is reported daily by the ICE. The higher this number is, potential physical delivery becomes a more credible a "threat" to speculative funds, influencing them to exit long futures positions earlier (or not enter into as many long positions next time) in order to prevent having to buy their way out. Another consideration regarding the rising certificated stocks levels is that they reflect an abundance of poorer grade cotton (by export standards) that is still eligible for delivery against the No. 2 Cotton futures contract.

The 2012/13 cotton supply/demand picture remains framed by USDA's May WASDE report. The May report represents the first detailed and comprehensive forecast of 2013/14 numbers, and as such it is scrutinized for direction on new crop fundamentals. The May report also updated the old crop numbers, and there were a few changes of note. Foreign ending stocks were raised month-over-month by over 2.5 million bales, based on an increase in production (mostly in India), an increase in imports (mostly by China), and an increase in consumption (mostly in India). The net effect of all that was a 750,000 bale increase and a 2.62 million bale increase in India's and China's 2012/13 respective ending stocks. This still implies a nominally huge 78.4% stocks-to-use ratio. Ordinarily this would mean that almost four fifths of the cotton needed in the 2013/14 marketing year will already be sitting in warehouses by the summer of 2013. What's extraordinary is that roughly half of that will presumably still be inaccessible Chinese government reserves. The month-over-month adjustment and year-over-year comparisons, as well as the actual levels would ordinarily be neutral to bearish. However, the normal supply/demand interpretations are all muddled up by the policy distorted, and perhaps enduring, effect of China's government reserves. As long as the reserve stocks stay off the shelf and out of circulation, prices will remain supported where they are. If these reserves start to be released and sold to Chinese mills, then these stocks will begin to have their predictable price weakening effect. For the time being, the A-index of world prices has climbed back over 90 cents per pound (thus reducing much likelihood of non-zero LDP payment rates for U.S. growers in the 2012/13 marketing year).

USDA's May projections of U.S. new crop cotton numbers involved a negligible change in U.S. production and a 200,000 bale increase in estimated U.S. exports. The result was a tightening in estimated U.S. ending stocks from 4.2 million to 4.0 million bales. Historically, this month-on-month increase in projected ending stocks would be mildly price supporting although that was not the case in last Friday's markets.

The 2013/14 market outlook got its first official USDA projection in the May WASDE numbers. The numbers were in line with previous analysis by the National Cotton Council and USDA Outlook Forum, both of which emphasized the uncertainty from China's reserve stock policy. Like the prior reports, the May WADE assumes a continuation of China's internal support price and reserve stock building policy. This assumption has has some merit given Chinese policy goals, and it implies that China will still be importing some cotton, though perhaps not as much as in past years. And like the two prior outlooks , the May WASDE numbers project a tightening of U.S. ending stocks by the end of the 2013/14 marketing year. All of these outlook projections see a continuation of excess world production over consumption, leading to another addition to record world ending stocks. However, with over half of the projected 2013/14 world ending stocks represented by the Chinese reserve stocks, prices will likely stay in their artificially high trading range... unless something really changes with the Chinese reserve stock policy.

U.S. Planted Acreage. The National Cotton Council planting intentions survey is the earliest benchmark (circa Jan. 1), and it projected a large year-over-year decrease in U.S. plantings of all cotton, down to 9 million acres. USDA's Prospective Plantings report on March 28 projected 10 million acres of all U.S. cotton, which is in line with industry guesses and USDA's February projection at their Outlook Forum. Now the focus will shift to USDA's June 30 Planted Acreage report, and what might change between now and then. Historically, the March prospective plantings number changes by 4.2% compared to the June 30 planted acreage number (that's in absolute value, ignoring whether it's a positive or negative change). Some years the March prospective plantings barely changes. Some years there are large decreases, such as the ten to fifteen percent declines in 1982, 1983 (the PIK program), and 2007 (booming corn prices). Across the years that show a decline, the average percent decline is 4.5%. On the flip side, the average percent increase for years that saw an increase is 4.0%. Only one of those up years had a percent increase higher than ten percent (2011, when it was 17% on high cotton prices and dry weather).

Changes in relative prices may influence a marginal increase in cotton acres in the Delta and Southeast. Looking at the ugly drought monitor picture for the Southwest region, history suggests that we could also see a rise in Texas acreage planted to cotton -- for drought reasons more than price reasons. I am reminded that projected planted acreage in Texas rose by one million acres during the dry spring of 2011. If it stays as dry as it is, I could easily see 500,000+ more planted cotton acres in Texas above the USDA prospective plantings number. However, a late increase in planted acreage under dry conditions doesn't necessarily translate to more production, so I find the USDA assumption of 14 million bales of production to be pretty reasonable. As of May 12, the pace of cotton planting was 23% planted, which lags the five year average of 38%. The late planting is influenced by both the dryness in the Southwest and the wet conditions in the eastern cotton belt.

U.S. Exports and Ending Stocks. The variable most affected by Chinese reserve stock policy is U.S. cotton exports during 2013/14. USDA is assuming 11.3 million bales, while the NCC is assuming 10.6. In either case they wind up with a similar looking bottom line of 3.6 to 3.7 million bales of U.S. ending stocks. Again, that outcome suggests a year-on-year decline of a million or so bales, and hence a modest tightening of prices as already signaled by comparing Dec'13 futures to where Dec'12 was trading.

There are lots of uncertain variables in the cotton supply/demand outlook. The two biggest are 1) how China manages their government reserves, and 2) how dry it stays in KS/OK/TX. On the China question, the risk is that they will stop importing cotton, and use up some of their reserves instead. That would add more surplus U.S. cotton than previously expected, and result in weaker prices. But that's assuming that the U.S. doesn't have a production shortfall due to drought. There will be both uncertainty in planted acreage and crop condition well into the summer. That uncertainty may buoy the market a little.

In addition the the uncertainty related to U.S. acreage and weather, reduced cotton acreage in foreign countries will also bring the weather into sharp focus. While there were earlier projections of a return to normal monsoon rainfall patterns for the Indian sub-continent, more recent forecasts are for a slightly late monsoon arrival. Cotton planting in India, which began in April, is currently projected to be down over six percent year-over-year, but sowings themselves are a partial function of rainfall patterns.

As the 2013 season progresses, there are several resources to help monitor the weather in major foreign producing countries. India has a number of weather forecast resources on the web. For example, you can overlay this cumulative monsoon rainfall map of India against a map of the major Indian production regions. Focusing on China, a monthly cumulative "drought monitor" type of map is available through the Beijing Climate Center. For any given date, click on either the "CN" link or the "precipitation anomaly percent" link , and then use the translated color coding below. It helps to overlay the China precipitation anomaly map with the cncotton map of cotton growing regions (scroll down to the bottom of their web page). There is also an on-line East Asia Drought monitor map, but it is more time lagged and a little harder to identify specific regions of China. These considerations will be important next year during their planting and growing season.

A marketing plan is a price contingency plan of actions that a grower/hedger will take in various possible, but ultimately uncertain, future market situations. A marketing plan can include many strategies, probably in combination with each other. These could include basic tactics like forward contracting, selling at harvest, marketing pools, and the USDA loan program. Hedging with futures and options can complement or substitute for these basic tactics. Besides the strategy, a marketing plan should include targeted price levels and calendar dates when you will take a given action. Lastly, a marketing plan should be a written document to help you remember and to take action, i.e., just like your To-Do-List.

2012 Crop. My hat is off to those growers who bought Dec'12 puts in the 80 to 90 cent range. This chart tracks the premium of a 85 cent put option on Dec'12 futures (the red line) compared to the Dec'12 futures price (the blue line). With the decline in Dec'12 futures, a strategy in the first quarter of 2012 to buy an 85 cent put for four cents would have quadrupled your money by summer time. After that point, the put premium would have declined as Dec'12 futures has trended higher, and also as time value has begun eroding away. The point is, though, that the put premium worked like an insurance payment across the growing season to offset the decline in 2012 cash cotton value. But that is all hindsight. From here forward, I would be looking for selling opportunities. I view the rallies in old crop futures as a selling opportunity. In my opinion, the last thing someone should do is hang on to cotton into next year thinking that prices should be strengthening. The spread of July futures over May do not give a strong economic incentive to store cotton in hopes of higher prices. And then there is the downside risk of 1) China releasing more government reserve cotton and weakening prices, and/or 2) the hedge funds downshifting their net long position, for whatever reason.

2013 Crop. I am projecting a price outlook of range-bound prices, in the mid-70 to 90, with downside risk. That range has already resulted in a crop insurance projected price between 79 and 83 cents. That means that revenue policies will provide only low level price protection, depending on your realized yield. As a matter of fact, if you have normal yields, then an 83 cent base price and a 65% coverage level for RP gives the same level of downside price protection as a high 57 cent loan value. So this is a year for growers to ponder the worth of revenue policies. One consideration is effectively raising your RP base price by purchasing a near-the-money put spread on Dec'13 cotton futures. This put spread strategy was the main topic of discussion at this year's Cotton Incorporated Option Workshops, as well as in the March Ag Market Network. A current example of a put spread (based on May 2 settlement prices) would be buying an 85 put on Dec'13 for 5.12 cents and selling a 75 put for 1.47 cents. The net cost is 5.12 - 1.47 = 3.65 cents per pound. Such a strategy would buffer a price dip back into the mid 70s, which could happen if the hedge funds get out of their large net long speculative position and China starts releasing more reserve stocks than is currently expected. The only forward pricing alternative for many dryland growers may be enrolling their acreage in a seasonal marketing pool. If you are still worried about the pool selling into a downward price trend, then the pool marketing could also be married to a put option strategy to provide some insurance against a declining price trend.

Historical Hedging Examples. Recent history provides examples of how different futures price patterns can be approached with the flexibility offered by options strategies. The first is December 2003 whose unexpected late-season price surge highlights the need for upside price flexibility in your marketing strategy. The second example highlights the need for a price floor when you have a reasonable expectation (but still ultimately uncertain) of a major price decline, as in early December 2004. The third and fourth examples are from December 2005 and December 2006 when prices traded in a narrow band below most growers' costs of production. In this situation, insuring a meaningful price floor using put options would have been more expensive, so various spread strategies could have been employed to finance the core put option strategy. The December 2007 contract shows how more volatile and higher prices provided more opportunities to set a flexible floor using options. The December 2008 contract provides an extreme picture of volatility and potential option hedging (with some caveats about accessing and/or affording the options). The December 2009 contract also displayed large price swings, with opportunities for options to provide insurance coverage (but not much insurance payout, in that case). The unprecedented price pattern of the December 2010 contract provides another extreme picture of volatility and potential option hedging. Probably the most notable opportunity in the 2010 case was for those who purchased $1.00 call options on Dec'10 in about August, not because they could see the future but because it was a relevant and very cheap insurance buy. Lastly, the pattern of December 2011 reflects a situation of predictably falling prices from a very high level. Because of the expense of put options, 2011 was a situation where put spreads would have been relevant for making downside price protection more affordable.

Crop Insurance Program Changes. 2011 saw some important changes to the crop and revenue insurance programs. A range of products like multi-peril crop insurance (i.e., the old APH yield policy), and the revenue insurance products that applied to cotton (e.g., Crop Revenue Coverage, Revenue Assurance, and Income Protection) were basically re-packaged by USDA-RMA, with a common mechanisms for price discovery and rating. Details on the official price discovery methods and sales closing dates for the 2012 cotton crop in different regions can be found here. In short, the price that will be used to value insured cotton will be based on the average of futures prices at defined periods of the year. This approach is new for yield insurance, but similar to how CRC coverage was priced in years past. The relevant price discovery windows are determined by a region's sales closing date. The 2013 projected price for upland cotton has already been established in South Texas at $0.77/lb. For regions with a Feb. 28 sales closing date it was established at $0.81/lb. The regions with a March 15 sales closing date (e.g., West Texas) have an $0.83/lb projected price.

The repackaged crop insurance program is known as the COMBO program. Instead of separate insurance products to insure cotton yield, or cotton gross revenue, cotton growers have a wide range of choices within one package. The first set of choices involve whether the grower wants to insure only yield (similar to the old multi-peril, APH yield policy, and is now simply called Yield Protection), or gross revenue (known as Revenue Protection, or RP, and similar to the old CRC product using the higher of planting or harvest time futures prices to value the coverage) or gross revenue without the harvest time price valuation (known as Revenue Protection Harvest Price Exclusion, or RPHPE,and similar to the old RA or IP products. The three new product choices vary in cost as they provide differing levels of protection. How does this relate to cotton marketing? Well, the yield protection product basically only covers your yield risk (valued at pre-plant futures prices, and only triggering if there is a yield loss). The revenue products protect you from declines in gross revenue caused by lower yields and/or lower prices. Thus the new revenue products are analogous to having yield insurance plus a deep out-of-the-money put and call option (for RP) or just having yield insurance plus a deep out-of-the-money put option (RPHPE). All things being equal, the latter revenue product would cost less than the former, but the latter leaves a grower more exposed to the risk of revenue losses.

One implication of the common pricing and rating procedures for these products is that you can compare the difference in premiums and infer the value of the built-in price insurance. For example, for a given coverage level, the difference in per acre premiums between the YP and RPHPE policies would reflect the value of downside price insurance, analogous to the value of an out-of-the-money put option. Likewise, the difference between the per acre premiums between the RPHPE and RP policies would reflect the value of upside price insurance, analogous to the value of a call option. Knowing this, growers can compare the value of downside or upside price insurance from revenue products to comparable price insurance via the options market. For example, there could be some years when it would be cheaper to buy a YP policy and marry it to an out-of-the-money put option, rather than buy an RPHPE policy. Or vice versa.

Coverage Level. Beyond the choice of product, growers have to decide the level of coverage, i.e., 60% or 65% or whatever. All things being equal, the cost of your insurance premium will be higher at higher levels of coverage. Because of the greatly increased premium costs, cotton growers may want to consider (or at least price) lower levels of coverage than they have had in the past.

Aggregation. In addition to type of product and coverage level, growers have to decide the level of aggregation of insurable units, with a brief description of the choices being the following (check your crop insurance agent for more important details and requirements): 1) optional units -- smaller divisions of basic units such as individual farm numbers or sections and/or dividing up your cotton into separate insurable practices like dryland versus irrigated; 2) basic units -- all the owned and cash rented farmland in the county that is planted to the same crop, and separately all the share rented farmland in the county that is planted to the same crop; 3) enterprise units -- combination of all the owned, cash rented or share rented farmland in the county that is planted to the same crop; 4) whole farm units -- combination of all the insurable acres in the county of at least two crops. These unit descriptions are presented in increasing order of aggregation. All things being equal, the cost of the insurance will decrease as you combine into higher levels of aggregation (because you are bearing more yield risk at higher levels of aggregation). Similar to the choice of coverage levels, growers may want to at least price the cost of higher levels of aggregation to lower insurance premiums that will greatly inflated by high projected price levels and volatility.

Cotton growers have additional choices to make. The most notable one is the cottonseed endorsement, which provides additional coverage for the value of lost cottonseed in the event of an insurable loss in lint yield.

Workshop opportunities. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service offers a number of resources on marketing and risk management. The pre-plant educational meetings offered by county extension agents often include market outlook information. Extension agricultural economists regularly conduct half-day or one-day trainings introducing the topic of hedging with futures and options. To have one in your area, contact your county agent. In addition, Extension Economists periodically offer Master Marketer workshops, which involve 64 hours of training aimed at developing a comprehensive marketing plan. The next Master Marketer workshop will be in early 2013, tentatively in the Wharton area.

One thing we always do at Master Marketer is conduct a hands-on trading game for cotton and grains. We also do separate one-day Cotton and Grain Risk Management Workshops that provide this same kind of hands-on learning experience, along with current cotton/grain market outlook and a discussion of current crop insurance issues. We have conducted these types of workshops in various settings, including the last two DTN/The Progressive Farmer Ag Summits in Chicago.

Lastly, I routinely deliver presentations on the outlook for cotton prices. These are usually scheduled and coordinated by County Extension Agents for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

Costs of Production Planning . A marketing plan is a contingency plan of actions that a grower would take in various possible, but ultimately uncertain, market situations. Developing and implementing a marketing plan begins with an updated estimate of expected production costs. Without accurate farm-specific cost information, it is impossible to set meaningful pricing goals to cover your production costs. Texas cotton growers have a number of available sources of information and programs to help them figure their production costs as accurately and completely as possible. This is extra important for the 2012 crop since input prices are likely to be rising along with commodity markets.

Other Resources. Extension economists and county agents are involved in a number of marketing clubs which provide growers an opportunity for more regular interaction and discussion about marketing. We facilitate the monthly Ag Market Network activity which connects growers and marketing clubs with panels of knowledgeable analysts. To support all these efforts, we also have an extensive on-line library of short articles about various topics related to marketing and risk management. A good, comprehensive and cotton-focused on-line bulletin about the cotton futures market is available courtesy of my colleague Blake Bennett and Cotton Incorporated. A paper about Texas cotton transportation and logistics compares current cotton flow data with information from the 1980s and 1990s. With permission from the good folks at Cotton Outlook, I am reprinting here a descriptive, background article entitled Trends and Prospects for Texas Cotton. And similarly, with permission from ICAC, here is a reprint of an article discussing the role of the fund sector in recent cotton price volatility. Lastly, here is an article about the potential impacts of expanded trading hours on the CME. Although this doesn't affect cotton, it does reflect on how expanded trading hours on the ICE may forecast the changes to the CME.

DISCLAIMER :

The opinions and recommendations expressed are solely those of the author and are intended for educational purposes only as part of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Neither the author nor the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service assume any liability for the use of this newsletter. Educational programs of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service are open to all people without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age, or national origin.

Dr. John R. C. Robinson
Professor and Extension Economist-Cotton Marketing
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

Department of Agricultural Economics
Texas A&M University
2124 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-2124
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This project supported by Cotton Incorporated

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