The cotton market finished lower Friday amid slow exports sales data and slow holiday volume. To the latter, given Friday’s session was sandwiched between Independence Day on Thursday and Saturday, many traders were on holiday, and thus volume was tepid. Regarding weekly sales and exports, the numbers were an improvement over last week. However, last week essentially saw a net negative sales for the 2018-19 season.

To that end, China continues to conduct daily auctions for their state reserves, which is dampening the overall tenor of the export market. Last year, China was the top buyer of U.S. cotton with $9.90 billion, or 18% of all imported cotton. Clearly, China’s last participation has severely hurt the cotton trade.

According to the South China Post, the U.S. and China will reportedly resume their trade talks in Beijing next week. However, the ban on Huawei, as well as the lifting of all tariffs, will likely be huge sticking points to reaching a final deal. The two nations agreed to restart negotiations during the recent G-20 summit with talks between Chinese President Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Also next week, USDA will report on the crop’s condition on Monday, while Tuesday will see the final expiration of the July contract. Thursday will see the usual weekly sales and exports data, but will also see the monthly supply and demand report for July.

July cotton settled at 63.44 cents, down 0.31 cent, on Friday. December finished at 66.82 cents, off 0.43 cent, and March 2020 cotton closed at 67.82 cents, down 0.29 cent. Friday’s estimated volume was is 15,466 contracts.