By Keith Brown, DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market overcame an early steep 2.00-cent sell-off to close with only double-digit losses. Of course, Tuesday, all eyes were squarely focused on the crude oil market mainly to see how spot May would expire.

Subscribers will remember spot oil traded into sub-zero levels on Monday. Anyway, the expiring May contract did come together with front-running June contract. That doesn’t mean all is well, but it does help the marketplace’s psyche.

Cotton is anticipating negative export sales this Thursday. From our conversations with foreign reporters, overseas mills are still shuttering their factories. However, also on Thursday, weekly jobless claims will be reported.

As of last week, some 22 million Americans had filed for unemployment funds. That translates into a massive amount of demand destruction towards apparel sales.

Also, Thursday is the last opportunity for market participants to exit or roll out of cash positions ahead of Friday first notice day for the May contract. Given the current bearish environment of the cotton market, we would not expect to see any sort of big deliveries. However, as they say, it’s different strokes, for different folks.

Tuesday, May cotton ended at 53.31 cents, down 0.72 cent, July closed at 53.31 cents, down 0.71 cent and December finished at 55.16 cents, down 1.17 cents. Estimated volume 29,692 contracts.