By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent
The cotton market built a stronger bullish lead Wednesday after Tuesday’s strong up move. About midmorning Wednesday, short-sold speculators began to cover and new technical buying emerged. Those technical buyers were encouraged by certain chart indicators, which suggested even higher prices may be forthcoming. With Wednesday’s close, May cotton has nearly returned to its highest point of the year, which was January high of 76.14 cents.
We see the underlying fundamentals of the market as the potential for a U.S./China trade deal, some early weather concerns and the notion India doesn’t have enough surplus supply to sustain China’s cotton appetite. To that end, on Thursday the weekly sales and exports data will hopefully show China as at least a small net buyer of old crop cotton.
As the focus of the market shifts to the new crop, cotton’s seasonal is beginning to tug prices higher. Traditionally, that seasonal suggests the peak time for cotton prices often comes within the March/April/May planting window. Last year, the 2018 was near 96 cents when the initial news of the trade tariffs hit the market. Subscribers will remember from that moment on, it was all downhill. That move is a hill the market might want to climb this season.
Wednesday May cotton settled at 75.72 cents, up 0.87 cent, July finished at 76.81 cents, up 0.77 cent and December closed at 74.59 cents, up 0.31 cent. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 41,955 contracts traded.
