By Keith Brown, DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market continues to lose ground as the Dow Jones traded a day of wild swings. For instance, the Dow had a 500-point swing in one hour Wednesday morning. Such volatility absolutely discourages would-be buyers of any markets, especially cotton. Cotton posted new lows for the move. In fact, the market is nearing its lows of early December 2019, which launched the phase-one rally in the January high.

Thursday, USDA will report on weekly sales and exports. Given the bearish psychology that is gripping the market, it will take stout sales and shipment to at least neutralize cotton’s current bearish attitude.

March cotton remains in its delivery period. There have been a few notices tendered, but they have all been stopped by a strong commercial and otherwise have played no effective role in the market’s downdraft.

To show the intensity of the current financial action, the Dow Jones is down 1,975 points for the week and 11,518 points down on the year. For May cotton, it is down 3.53 cents on the week and about 3.50 cents for the year.

For Wednesday, May cotton settled at 65.47 cents, down 0.83 cent, July finished at 66.08 cents, down 0.84 cent and December closed at 65.84 cents, down 0.91 cent. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 41,098 contracts.