By Keith Brown, DTN Cotton Correspondent 

Fears of foreign textile mill cancellations and/or defaults has cotton’s economic dominoes going backwards. It has been reported that a massive amount of small and large textile mills from Vietnam to India to Central America are shutting down operations in their fight against the coronavirus.

Thus, the mills are backing up on merchants, who in turn are backing up on gins, who are backing up on producers. Monday spot cotton knocked out a 10-year low of trading 48.85 cents.

Tuesday, USDA will issues its planting intentions for 2020, the most common estimated is 12.70 million acres, but whatever the number it will be viewed with skepticism.

Additionally, Tuesday also represents the end of the month and end of the quarter, so trading may become erratic as traders, hedgers, speculators instigate position adjustments and squaring. To that point, the market is hugely oversold.

The U.S. dollar remains the current go to safe-haven market. Ordinarily, gold and silver hold that title, but with the U.S. government leading the fight on the coronavirus with a $6 trillion stimulus package — scared and frightened investors are betting on the Ddllar, literally.

For Monday, May cotton closed at 50.70 cents, down 0.63 cent, July ended at 50.56 cents, down 0.72 cent and December settled at 53.44 cents. Estimated volume was 42,541 contracts.