By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market closed higher for the day, and the week on the hopes a real deal with China happens. Already there has been a verbal come-together between the U.S. and China, but no deal has been signed. The plan is to have the top negotiators ink the deal sometime in January. However, questions are now being raised as the wherewithal China has to buy and import some $40 billion of U.S. goods. Moreover, other questions are being postured about possible WTO violations.

For the week, March cotton finished 1.16 cent, that’s Friday-over-Friday. Additionally, Friday’s close was the highest weekly close since May 6, 2019.

With next week being Christmas, the market will not follow a normal schedule. To that end, the market will close early on Christmas Eve (1:05 p.m. ET), and will not reopen until Thursday morning. Weekly sales and exports are delayed till Friday as well.

Technically, the spot market closed well above the 200-day moving average, which often is taken as a buy point by the long-term trend-following speculators.

For Friday, March cotton settled at 67.96 cents, up 0.38 cent, July ended at 69.66 cents, up 0.34 cent, and December finished at 69.61 cents, plus 0.47 cent. Friday’s estimated volume was 28,859 contracts.