Unlike Wednesday where the cotton market collapsed lower but then experienced a late session recovery, the market Thursday just simply collapsed. Although, it already carried a bearish mindset at the outset of trading, once USDA’s weekly sales and exports data hit the wires, the market’s attitude really soured. In that report both sales and shipments were off from the previous week’s business.

Although China did appear as a buyer in both crop seasons, the total for both crop year sales came in under 200 bales. The emerging selling pressure easily pushed prices below Wednesday’s spike low, a level many thought would stand as an interim market low. However, prices violated that support and then some.

A major cyclone, the strongest in 20 years, is set to hit between India and Bangladesh. Dubbed Cyclone Fani, it is violently churning the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Currently, its path takes it on a coastal route and potentially making landfall more towards Bangladesh. Thus, it is hard to say whether any of the major interior agricultural areas of the Sub-Continent will be harshly effected.

For next week, much of the weather for the U.S. Cotton belt looks clear. If that is the case, the planting of the 2019 crop will potentially pick up its pace. The next update on the progress of the crop will be Monday afternoon when USDA releases that information. We would point out the reading of the U.S. Drought Monitor has much of the Georgia cotton belt in a dry to drought status.

Thursday, July cotton settled at 75.45 cents, down 1.26 cents, December finished at 74.42 cents, off 1.11 cents and March concluded at 75.07 cents, down 0.92 cent. Thursday’s estimated volume was 28,000 contracts.