By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market sloughed off weak-to-neutral export-sales data, to finish the Thursday session higher. Initially, USDA reported improved sales from last week, but lagging shipments. However, China was the dominant participant. Still, the market traded lower on slack volume. Late in the session, the market perked higher as updated weather forecasts began to reduce rain percentages for West Texas and the Panhandle. Over the next 10 days, chances for rain over the Lubbock and Amarillo areas stands at a mere 10%.

Spot July cotton saw no deliveries Thursday. Thus far, for the remaining old crop contract, there have been a total of 171 contracts delivered. Its notice period ends with its expiration, which comes on July 9.

Tuesday the market will finally see USDA’s planted acres numbers. This past March, Intended acres were pegged at 13.703 million. However, between COVID-19 and the demand loss for economic shutdown, it was immediately assumed many producers opted more into peanuts, thus reducing cotton acres. Currently, the average 2020 acres guess stands at 13.15 million, within an industry range of 12.500 million to 13.70 million.

Heading into Friday’s trade, December cotton is down 0.11 cent on the week, but up 2.22 cents for the month. Of course, for the year, the market remains in a bearish trend, being down 10.66 cents.

July cotton closed at 61.81 cents, up 0.15 cent, December ended at 59.70 cents, up 0.49 cent and March finished at 60.32 cents, up 0.52 cent. Eestimated volume was a mild 12,669 contracts.