By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

It has been a tumultuous week thus far for the cotton market. On Monday, May cotton closed at 89.29 cents, but in subsequent sessions it collapsed some 6.00 cents on heavy technical selling. Then, on Wednesday, a small recovery began to emerge, with greater gains being made Thursday. Heading into Friday’s session, May cotton is up 0.59 cent on the week, down 0.48 cent on the month, but positive by 9.65 cents on the year.

Friday, the CFTC will publish its commitment of traders data. Unfortunately, the wild trading since Tuesday will not be accounted for in this report. However, next week’s numbers ought to be interesting.

This Monday is mid-month and traders will begin to obsess over the planting intentions for 2021. That information is being gathered by USDA and will be published on March 31. Currently, USDA has 2021 acres at 12 million. Yet, with the recent spill in December cotton, plus the strong competition from other crops, a case can be made that fewer-than-expected acres will be seen.

Thursday’s export sales were “so-so” with sales improving, but shipments reduced. Still cumulative sales for 2020-21 have reached 95% of USDA’s forecast for the marketing year versus a five-year average of 85%. Naturally, traders were disappointed in that USDA did not up its monthly export forecast in Tuesday’s supply/demand report.

Friday, May cotton closed at 88.35 cents, up 3.13 cents, July settled at 89.20 cents, up 3.15 cents and December ended at 84.89 cents, up 2.47 cents; estimated volume was 39,121 contracts.