By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market finished down midweek and all contracts months between both crop season eased off into their respective closings. Although, the daily ranges were tight, barely 1.00 cent, volume was large at 52,680 contracts. No doubt a fair amount of spreading occurred not only within the current year contracts, but also between old and new crop months.

The market is prepping for Friday’s option expiration and readying itself USDA’s supply-demand report as well. That report will be released at noon Eastern Friday. Early expectations suggest the 2019 crop will be essentially unchanged from the October report, while ending stocks may slip a tad.

Several agricultural and financial markets were also weaker Wednesday, as rumors abound the U.S.-China meeting will not take place until December. Apparently, an obvious sticking point is when and where of the meeting venue. However, China is still pushing the U.S. for reductions in tariffs before any deal can be a signed.

Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m., USDA will report on weekly sales and exports. The fact the dollar was higher last week, while cotton was somewhat lower, may have allowed each fundamental to serve as an offset to the other. Thus, sales are not expected to be particularity robust.

For Wednesday, December cotton settled at 63.69 cents, down 0.12 cent, March ended at 65.27 cents, down 0.20 cent and December 2020 closed at 67.57 cents, down 0.01 cent. For midweek, spot cotton is down 0.54 cent from last Friday.