The cotton market finished markedly lower Thursday, unable to break the bearish spell of the Dow Jones. At one time the Dow was off 2100 points, but then rallied to within 700 points of unchanged. That snap-up was the result of the Federal Reserve announcement it would take certainly monetary action to support the credit markets.

However, even as that internal rally unfolded, cotton could not gain positive traction. The frustrating situation of the market is knowing the record amount of cotton is being sold versus the market’s unwillingness to rally.

Thursday’s exports-sales was another record sale with China buying nearly 100,000 bales. Its big-time participation suggests its factories are coming back online. If that is the case, then we may see other huge sales to China as it has a great deal of lost time and money to make-up.

Spot May is down 3.09 cents on the week, 2.10 cents off on the month, and 9.35 cents on the year. May cotton settled at 59.70 cents, down 1.85 cents, July ended at 60.35 cents, down 1.81 cents and December closed at 60.84 cents, down 1.59 cents. Estimated volume was 67,803 contracts.