By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent

The market closed slightly lower for the day, but moderately higher for the week. At the beginning of this New Year’s week, the news centered on the upcoming the U.S.-China signing ceremony in Washington on Jan. 15. The market took that information as an obviously friendly fundamental. Thus, coming off a strong month of December, speculators finally turned net long after being net sort and at times record net short, for much of 2019.

One fundamental that helped buoy prices Friday was the strong weekly sales and exports data. For a quick comparison, last week saw combined sales of 144,000 bales, while Friday’s amount of both crop years combined was 265,600 contracts. Vietnam was the largest buyer on Thursday’s report.

Next week the market returns to a normal trading schedule, if normal is a word one can use when discussing cotton. Anyway, weekly sales and exports return to their Thursday slot, while the Labor Department will release its jobs data on Friday. Last month’s jobs report far exceeded all analyst’s expectation, and set a positive tone not only for the financial markets, but the cotton market as well.

For Friday, March cotton closed at 69.20 cents, down 0.07 cent, July finished at 71.27 cents, down 0.07 cent and December ended at 71.24 cents up 0.01 cent. For the week, March cotton finished 0.28 cent higher. Friday’s estimated volume was 33,100 contracts.