By Keith Brown, DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market finished slightly higher Tuesday despite what was taken as bearish planting intentions from USDA. For some time now, as prices cascading down due to the fallout from the coronavirus, it was widely believed 2020 acres would come in dramatically lower.

However, USDA indicated only a reduction of 100,000 acres from the 2019 intentions. Thus, the report was taken initially as bearish. However, end-of-the-month and end-of-the-quarter position squaring brought prices back to better settlements.

Wednesday commences a new trading month, so it will be interesting to see if willing sellers reemerge. The next event for the cotton market will be Thursday’s exports-sales report. Of late sales and shipments have been strong, bur fears of foreign mill closures have initiate some cancellations.

Technically, the market is hugely oversold, as speculators are maintaining net short position. However, such beaten-down levels are no automatic buy signals. If anything, a wounded market often results in additional sellers piling on harder.

For Tuesday, May cotton closed at 51.13 cents, up 0.43 cent, July ended at 50.90 cents, up 0.34 cent and December finished at 53.41 cents, down 0.03 cent. Tuesday’s estimated volume was only 41,323 contracts.