By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Contributing Analyst
After a strong Thursday showing, December cotton closed slightly lower in a muted Friday session. Estimated volume was near 30,000 contracts, about half of Thursday’s super-up day. Thursday’s big rally was inspired by the possibility of the U.S. and China nudging towards ending the trade war. However, other than the side meeting scheduled between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi at the G-20 gathering, no hard decision have been made.
Earlier on Friday, the Labor Department issued the monthly jobs report and it was strong. Expectations called for 190,000 jobs created for September, but Friday’s number was 250,000. Such a number is dollar positive, which, in turn, is a negative fundamental for cotton.
Next week, two big events to watch will be the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday and USDA’s monthly supply-demand report at noon Thursday. Also, that day, will be weekly sales and exports. Traders are expecting a significant decline in the size of the U.S. 2018 Crop. The last number was 19.75 million bales, but that was before Hurricane Michael, and the freeze and snow that occurred in West Texas.
December cotton was up 0.26 cent week-over-week. However, for the day, December cotton settled at 78.79 cents, down 0.24, March was 80.31 cents, down 0.17 cent, and red December was 78.31 cents, down 0.01 cent.
