By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

Under the old market wisdom that says, “a bull must eat every day,” there was little fodder for the bull to chew Tuesday. Last week USDA cut the 2019 crop, then reported strong sales and exports Thursday, all followed by Friday’s verbal trade agreement. However, Tuesday the market saw few reasons to trade higher. To that end, with the holiday’s approaching next week, the market may take a wait-and-see attitude and see how the so-called trade deal unfolds over the next few weeks.

Technically, the 100-day trend has turned bullish. Additionally, the market is threatening to close above the 200-day moving average for the past three out of four days. The 200-day average is a trading staple for the certain trend-following funds. Money-managed funds have pared their net short position to a near flat position. Thus, a demonstrative close above the 200-average might be enough to convince speculators to reverse their bearish course and go net long.

The next potential market-moving report will be Thursday’s weekly sales and export. Current year sales are exceeding USDA’s original forecast and are higher than the five-year average. Interestingly, China is the number two buyer of U.S. cotton behind front-running Vietnam this season.

For Tuesday, March Cotton closed 66.44 cents, down 0.53 cent, July ended at 68.54 cents, down 0.45 cent and December finished at 68.59 cents, down 0.31 cent. Estimated 22,852 contracts.