By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market unfolded a triple-digit retreat Thursday, as its overbought condition caused some traders to liquidate. Even positive outside markets, such as the recovering Dow Jones, as well as higher Soybeans and crude, could not dissuade traders from selling long positions. Of course, with the market posting a near 10% gain so early in the year, it’s generally thought correction of some degree would be healthy towards the longer-term trend.

Friday morning, USDA will issue its weekly sales and exports. That report was delayed until Friday due to the observance of the MLK holiday. Traders are hoping to see strong sales and shipments data.

Also Friday, the CFTC will issue its commitment of traders report. The critical information in this report typically revolves around the managed-money funds. At last count, that speculative group was net long some 84,000 contracts, or the equivalent of 8.40 million bales of cotton.

Heading into Friday’s session, spot March cotton is up 3.15 cents on the week, and stunningly is higher on the month and year by some 10.25 cents.

Thursday, March cotton settled at 122.87 cents, down 1.08 cents, July ended at 116.87 cents, down 0.44 cent and December finished at 99.01 cents, 0.17 cent lower; estimated volume was 27,675 contracts.