By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market settled moderately lower Friday, ignoring a very welcomed weekly sales and export number. Weekly sales of 281,500 bales were higher than last week. Weekly shipments of 184,500 were also higher week-over-week, as well as being up on the monthly pace.

Nonetheless, fears of Chinese retaliation over the Hong Kong rights bill gave cotton a queasy feeling all day. China was publicly angered with President Trump’s signing of the rights legislation to the point of calling in the U.S. ambassador to lodge a formal protest. Obviously, the big concern is that U.S.-China trade talks could potentially get derailed.

Next week, trading starts a new month with a normal weekly schedule. Thus, crop harvest will be published on Monday, with export and sales out on their regular Thursday time slot. Additionally, December cotton remains in delivery. To date some nearly 700 notices have been issued with all being stopped by strong commercial hands.

For the week, March cotton was up 0.51 cent, but weirdly for the month of November it was off 0.52 cent. Thus far for the year, March cotton is down 8.90 cents.

Friday, spot December finished at 64.40 cents, down 0.51 cent, March ended at 65.36 cents, down 0.45 cent and December 2020 closed at 66.84 cents, down 0.80 cent. Estimated volume was 15,345 contracts.