By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market traded triple-digit highs at one point during Monday’s session, as speculators bought as part of their end-of-the-quarter short-covering maneuvering. At their speculative peak just a few weeks ago, the Funds were over 49,000 contracts net short, or the equivalent of 4.90 million bales.

Since that time, that have been reducing their positions in a fairly orderly trade. The most recent data has them with 24,900 contracts net short. Last week alone, they reeled in some 9,500 contacts to greatly lighten their load.

Monday afternoon USDA will report on the condition of the 2019 crop and the progress of its gathering. Given that Monday is the first day of autumn, producers are just beginning their harvesting efforts, but the month of October will be the official out-of-the-gate launch for harvest.

There are reports India’s crop may be larger than initially anticipated. Despite her erratic monsoonal activity, late season rains have analysts there suggesting the Indian crop may jump as much as 20% in size. So, it would seem USDA’s increases of her crop in its supply-demand data may be warranted after all.

In to the close, December cotton was 60.87 cents, up 0.35 cent, March was up 61.64 cents, up 0.47 cent and December 2020 was at 64.08 cents, up 0.56 cent. Monday’s estimated volume was 17,121 contacts