What every colour, leaf and staple is worth against the 41-4-34 base, in the seven designated spot markets and against the ICE delivery schedule — and what the crop actually coming off the gins earns on it.
USDA AMS publishes a full premium and discount schedule every business day, per market, in points off the base quality — one point is a hundredth of a cent per pound, $0.05 on a 500 lb running bale. This is that schedule.
Read straight off the surface as a first difference, at today's US average schedule from the base quality. No fitting, no smoothing — these are the published numbers subtracted from each other.
At colour 41, staple 34.
Within a whiteness group, at leaf 4, staple 34.
Colour, leaf and staple set the headline. Micronaire, strength, uniformity and extraneous matter are applied on top, and they are where a lot of realised value quietly goes. Plastic contamination alone is a 4,000-point discount — $200 a bale.
AMS publishes the market-year surface twice: once as a plain average of the daily schedules, and once weighted by the 2025-crop production of each market. Where the weighted surface sits below the plain one, the qualities that grew were concentrated in the markets that pay least for them. It is the closest thing published to a realised-versus-quoted premium.
Weighted minus quoted, in points. Negative means the production weighting pulled the market-year average below the plain schedule average for that quality.
USDA classing gives the colour and leaf distribution of the bales actually classed so far. Weighting the surface by that distribution turns a price schedule into a valuation of the crop in front of you.
Share of classed bales. Cells USDA suppressed are absent, not zero.
The same mix priced on each market's own schedule, at staple 34.
The classing colour/leaf mix valued at every staple the surface quotes. The slope is the cash consequence of the crop coming in shorter or longer.
Move share of the crop between qualities and revalue it on today's schedule. Nothing is forecast — the shift is yours, the valuation is USDA's. Moves are capped at the share actually present, so a scenario cannot invent bales.
Each market quotes its own base and its own differences. A quality is not worth one number nationally — pick one and see the spread.
The CCC marketing-assistance loan sets a floor. When a quality's market value falls toward its loan-equivalent, the bale stops moving into the cash market and starts moving into the loan — and, if it is tenderable, toward certification.
The ICE Cotton No. 2 tenderable schedule is a second, narrower premium surface: only white grades 11–51 and light spotted 12–32, leaf 1–5, staple 33–37. Where it pays more than the spot market, the bale is worth more delivered than sold.
Season average for colour 41, leaf 4, staple 34 in each designated market.