December cotton was slightly higher Thursday as traders evened up their positions ahead of Friday’s all-important August supply/demand report. Interestingly, the ICE futures choose to ignore the potential for the most serious West Texas rain of the season this weekend, as well as lackluster weekly sales and export report this morning.

At any rate, Friday at high noon EST, USDA will issue its monthly data, which, supposedly is the result of actual field surveys. Thus, the report will offer a hands-on yield per acre estimate. Last month the government lowered the 2018 crop by one million bales to 18.50 million, but tomorrow’s guess is only a 300,000 bale additional cut.

December cotton settled 8726 up 8, March 2019 8769 up 22, and December 19 at 8079 +11. Thursday’s estimated volume was 26,600 contracts.