By Keith Brown, DTN Cotton Correspondent 

Monday’s meltdown in the Dow kept up the bearish pressure on the cotton market and then some. Amazingly, all ICE contract months are trading sub-60 cents, when just a mere six weeks ago, they were above 70-cents. In fact, the collapse of the Dow has been so ferocious, that it has all but rendered cotton’s bullish fundamentals neutral.

This week USDA will report on another set of exports-sales and how those can be any stronger than last week’s 480,000-plus report, we couldn’t say. Still, the market continues to bearishly unwind as fears of a global recession is font-and-center on the minds of traders.

Last Friday’s commitment-of-traders data, issued by the CFTC, showed managed-money speculators sold some 12,600 contracts. That liquidation has them now reverted to a net short positions. Subscribers might recall speculators were net short, sometimes record net short for most of 2019, until reversing course late last year.

Their about-face move was prompted by the potential of a trade deal with China, which was achieved in January this year. However, shortly thereafter the coronavirus emerged and it has been all downhill from that moment.

For Monday, May cotton settled 58.80 cents, off 1.69 cents, July finished at 59.11 cents, down 1.65 cents and December ended at 59.69 cents, down 1.53 cents. Estimated volume was 50,954 contracts.