The cotton market followed Tuesday’s triple-digit gains in the Dow Jones with strong double-digit gains of its own. In fact, spot March cotton, after its impressive intra-session comeback Monday, was able to close over the always important psychological 70-cent mark. Tuesday afternoon there will be earnings reports from several major companies, such as Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, among others.

If their collective earnings prove to be strong, then fear of the coronavirus may began to take a back seat to the more friendly stock news. Of course, a positive slant from them ought to peripherally support such industrial commodities as crude oil, copper and cotton.

Tuesday’s higher settle somewhat re-affirms the bullish technical trend of the market. After Monday’s strong volume showing of 52,000-plus contracts, Tuesday’s volume of nearly 35,000 contracts would seem to reflect another small victory for the bulls.

Reinforcing that point is the fact spot March now stands some 1.50 cents from hurdling its Jan. 22 high of 71.98 cents. Obviously, a close over that level would send short sellers scurrying, while encouraging new speculative buying.

Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will conclude its two-day meeting and announce its interest rate policy. The Fed is expected to hold rates steady.

Beyond that event, the cotton market will anticipate Thursday’s exports-sales report to see if China indeed appears as a buyer. While such an appearance would be bullish to the trade, last week’s sales were the strongest since October 2019.

For Tuesday, March cotton settled at 70.36 cents, up 0.85 cent, July finished at 71.64 cents, up 0.96 cent and December closed at 70.65 cents, up 0.55 cent.