The market gave up an early 1.5-cent rally to close essentially mixed Tuesday, in what should have been a strong turnaround Tuesday event. Prices came with earshot of trading the 60-cent mark, but speculative selling jumped on the rally and bent prices lower into the close. To some degree, the market is being victimized by all the kooky news coming from China as well as the U.S. One moment each side is hammering each other with tariffs, and the next, they talk about working out a deal in September.

The next report for the market to see will be Thursday’s weekly sales and exports. Last week, USDA reported slack numbers, with China pretty much absent from any business activity. The market is aware that the end of August comes Friday, and so there may be some squaring of positions held by speculators. However, with the trend down, the crop large, harvest just over the hill and China totally uncooperative, most would think there is little incentive to see a stout rally.

For Tuesday, December cotton finished at 57.92 cents, up 0.10 cent, March closed at 58.73 cents, down 0.01 cent and December 2020 ended at 61.76 cents, off 0.22 cent. Tuesday’s volume was 28,678 contracts, nearly equal that of Monday.