By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market was lower Thursday as the two USDA reports carried little drama to ignite price either way. The sales and exports report did show higher sales week-over-week but shipment were down. Then, at high noon, USDA released it latest supply/demand estimates. The U.S. crop was 21.71 million bales versus last month’s 21.86 million, a reduction of some 150,000 bales. Exports were left unchanged at 16.50 million, and this in turn, domestic carryout dropped 200,000 from 7.20 million to 7.00 million.

The other major story was the tweet President Trump sent out saying he would be meeting with the top Chinese negotiator Liu He Friday at the White House. Prior to that, the Chinese had signaled they would be leaving Thursday, making the scheduled two-day talks into a one day affair. So Friday could prove yet to be an interesting day.

October cotton expired on Wednesday at 61.01 cents. Its contract high came on June 8, 2018, at 95.64 cents and in contrast, its contract low was 56.65 cents on March 1, 2016.

For Thursday, December Cotton settled at 61.42 cents, down 0.67 cent, March finished at 62.08 cents, down 0.72 cent and December 2020 settled at 64.12 cents, down 0.76 cent. Estimated volume was 21,608.