By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Contributing Analyst
The cotton market finished moderately higher Wednesday, albeit there was no supportive news. Of late the market has been stuck in a pattern where it is bullishly higher one day, but bearishly lower the next. It seems that as long as the government remains closed, and the U.S./China trade war is unresolved, the combined uncertainty of both situations has bullish participants too scared to press the upside, and has bearish traders fearful to press the downside. Hence, its tedious, elongated trading formations.
Thursday is usually the day USDA issues its weekly sales and exports data. However as we all know, due to the government shutdown, such marketing data will be not forthcoming. In fact, this delay marks the fourth consecutive week sales and exports will be denied to the marketplace. To some degree, it matters not if the absent information was bearish or bullish, but simply that the market needs to know its specific information in a timely fashion. Traders and hedgers still have their marketing decisions to make.
March cotton settled at 73.27 cents, up 0.91 cent, July closed 75.71 cents, up 0.82 cent and December finished 74.24 cents, up 0.80 cent. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 25,200 contracts traded.
