By Keith Brown, DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market was lower again Wednesday, as heightened fears over the coronavirus sent the Dow Jones down some 2,000 points.

Additionally, the coronavirus melt killed crude oil down $6/barrel, gold $40 lower and zoomed the U.S. dollar over 200 basis points higher to close above par (100). The up-move in the Dollar was a pure-flight-to-quality move by investors and traders.

Thursday, USDA will issue its latest exports-sales, but in the current liquidation environment, what benefit will positive numbers hold for the current market? Hopefully, once the virus passes the overhead price vacuum may rapidly get filled.

However, until the financial and commodities markets sense the virus is peaking, that may not be the immediate case. Another yet aspect of the cotton market is now the managed-money speculators are net short and can easily add to their positions.

Heading into Thursday, spot May is down 4.40 cents for the week and 5.60 cents for the month.

Spot May closed at 56.64 cents, down 1.28 cents, July ended at 57.19 cents, down 1.16 cents and December closed at 58.08 cents, down 1.02 cents. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 60,787 contracts.