December Cotton settled markedly lower Thursday as concrete bullish news is in short-supply. To a degree, the market has preemptively dialed in the potential losses of Hurricane Florence. Additionally, Hurricane Isaac has been downgraded to a tropical storm, and for the moment seems to be less of a threat.

Other bearish news would include Thursday morning’s weekly sales and exports. That report revealed slow to dismal cotton business is occurring. Obviously, the lack of trade is a reflection of the U.S./China trade spat.

Of course, Wednesday’s bearish supply-demand report continues to weigh heavy on the Market. To that end, December cotton settled on the lower side of its congesting pattern, technically speaking. However, with harvest beginning to gear up, that seesaw formation may find it difficult to maintain.

Wednesday, there was news that the U.S. would invite China back to the negotiating table, but tweets from President Trump on Thursday indicated the “U.S. is under no pressure to settle.” We are sure the market took those comments as unhelpful.

December cotton closed 8151, down 113, March settled 8197, off 106, and December 2019 finished 7774, down 3.