The Current Trend Of Cotton Prices Is Affected By The Sluggish Terminal Consumption In The United States

Although the clothing sales in January 2024 showed a sharp decline month on month, it still performed well year on year. Judging from the US terminal clothing inventory and sales data, the de stocking process has a certain effect. At the end of 2023, the inventory consumption ratio of its wholesalers and retailers has declined significantly. The absolute inventory of wholesalers has decreased year on year and month on month, but the inventory of retailers is still at a high level year on year, increasing by 24.76% compared with the same period last year.

In December, the inventory of American retailers was basically at a very low level in a year, so the month on month decline was not of much practical significance. Since 2021, the retail inventory level of clothing in the United States has gradually climbed, reaching its peak in 2023, and its year-on-year level has been showing a growth trend. It can be seen that there is still some pressure on the US end consumer market, and the way to digest the backlog of inventory is not smooth.

At present, export orders from European and American countries undertaken by China and Southeast Asian countries represented by Vietnam do not explode as expected, and the convergence of new orders is poor. Therefore, the external demand for American cotton may not be as optimistic as USDA's expectations, so it is believed that the export of American cotton may decrease slightly in the future.

As the current market rhythm is in the transition period between old and new cotton, the new cotton planting expectation also affects the current cotton price trend to a certain extent.

The report released by the American Agricultural Outlook Forum on February 15 shows that the sown area of American cotton in 2024/25 will increase by 7.5% year-on-year to 11 million acres, but it is still the second lowest level since 2016, and the output is expected to increase by 28.7% year-on-year. However, according to the survey results released by the National Cotton Council (NCC) on February 18, the intended cotton planting area in the United States will be 9.8 million acres in 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 3.7%. The report believes that the cotton planting area of American upland cotton will be 9.6 million acres in 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%, and the area of long staple cotton will be 202 thousand acres, a year-on-year increase of 37.7%. From the subsequent price trend of American cotton, the panel basically reflects NCC's expectations.