The Farmer's Weblog

Monday, January 6, 2003

Led by improving US export sales, New York futures climbed back into the upper end of the current 48-53 cent trading range this week. Friday morning[base ']s push to 51.05 cents marked the high for the week. The market will continue to batter the 51-cent mark and will break above it. Look to buy any return to 49 cents. The 53-cent level is marked with a rather large bull[base ']s eye.
5:28:13 PM    comment []

The December forecast of 2002/03 world consumption is 96.4 million bales, up 203,000 bales, or less than one quarter of one percent from the July forecast. Despite the generally stable view on total consumption, shifts have been seen between countries. The 2002/03 consumption forecast for China has increased 1.25 million bales from the initial July forecast and now stands at 27.0 million bales or 28 percent of the world total. The only other major consuming countries with consumption over 1.0 million bales that have seen increases are Turkey and Taiwan. India, Japan, Russia, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Pakistan[base ']s forecasts are unchanged from July while all other major consuming countries have seen decreases in their forecasts for 2002/03.

The forecast for world production has decreased by 2.5 million balessince July as poor weather conditions reduced prospects in several countries, including the United States. The continued drought in Australia dramatically reduced the forecast for the 2002/03 Australian crop from 2.9 million bales to 1.5 million. China[base ']s production is up 1.0 million bales as both forecasted area and yield have increased. Trade levels are down slightly due to lower demand in importing counties, such as Indonesia and Korea, and lower production in exporting counties, such as the United States, Australia, Egypt, Greece, and FZA.
5:07:13 PM    comment []

Western markets. Spot cotton trading of upland cotton was very slow in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) over the past two weeks. Supplies slowly increased and were heavy. Demand was light. A light volume of color 31 and better, mostly leaf 3 and 4, staple 35 and longer, mike 35-49 traded at around 57.75 to 59.25 cents (UD free, FOB warehouse). Agents for domestic mills purchased a light volume of cotton for nearby shipment. Agents for mills in India purchased a light amount of roller ginned upland for January shipment. California harvesting was virtually complete. Only limited field work was done because of wet soil conditions. Good weather allowed farmers to complete pink bollworm stalk plow-down requirements with no extensions.
5:03:46 PM    comment []

This Page was last updated: 12/29/03; 3:38:07 PM
Copyright 2003 Russell Gum

About The Farmer's Weblog

Agriculture, Commodity markets, Software, Information technology are the focus of this weblog.

So what is a weblog, you ask? A weblog is a web page that you can subscribe to. With weblog software like Radio you can subscribe to any number of weblogs and then simply check a single news page to find all of the new information posted. The software checks for new updates every hour and posts them to your news page. The Radio software also lets you create your own weblogs. This software wonder even has a free trial period and on top of that is not expensive.

Currently you can subscribe to The Farmer's Weblog by just clicking on the XML coffee cup icon above while Radio is active. Or if you are using another weblog news reader, copy the RSS link hiding behind the xml icon above and add it to you subscription list. You can also subscribe to the individual categories, such as cotton or cattle. Click on their link at the top of the links list and then use their XML icons to set up your subscriptions.