World cotton prices on the New York futures market rose another 3% to their highest in two years. West Africa, which still has 35% of its cotton on the market, could do good business.

The March contract ended at 86.93 cents per pound (lb), the level it had not seen since August 2018. According to some, this would be the downward revision to estimates of ending stocks in the United States. States in the monthly cotton report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published yesterday which would have pushed the market up a little further.
“There remains between 30% and 35% of the harvest for sale, i.e. 300,000 to 350,000 tonnes (t), or 1.7 million bales (Mb). It's wonderful that at this stage of the campaign, there are still these volumes since the price is going up. If West Africa had sold everything three months ago, their income would have been cut by 10 to 25%. It was good logic to wait: every time they went to the market, the prices were too low and they often refused to sell at such levels because they couldn't find their way," said a European trader interviewed by CommodAfrica.
The maintenance of US stocks at the end of the 2020/21 season at 4.3 Mb against 4.6 million brings global stocks to 95.7 million against 96.3 million. According to Keith Brown of the Keith Brown brokerage in Georgia, the USDA could revise its production estimates downwards in March.