By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market overcame an early morning financial scare to finish its Thursday session slightly higher. The scare revolved around news that Europe was experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 and was considering a second shutdown. Already the UK signaled it was posting more restrictions for London, as did Paris. That uncertainty sent the European shares sharply lower, which spilled over into the U.S. stock markets, sending the Dow down 300 points. Naturally, such volatility caused many other markets, such as cotton, to take pause. However, as the day wore on, the Dow improved, lifting some of the bearish pressures off other markets.

Friday morning USDA will issue its delayed weekly export sales. Besides from a financial need, it would be psychologically friendly to see China come in as a serious participant. Last week, sales were 178,000, while shipments were 142,500 bales.

There is news that heavy rains are punishing certain parts of the Indian crop. Its monsoonal season runs from June to September, but according to some observers the late monsoons are lingering longer than normal. Currently, details are sketchy, but if this story has any serious merit, there will be additional breaks on the news.

As December cotton approaches its Friday Session, it stands up 1.58 cents on the week, 3.43 cents up on the month but down 1.14 cents on the year. The latter number is rather incredible given that, on April 2 of this year, December cotton was down 23.00-plus cents for 2020.

For Thursday, December cotton closed at 69.22 cents, up 0.29 cent, March ended at 69.93 cents, up 0.21 cent and December 2021 finished at 69.01 cents, up 0.24 cent. Estimated volume was 20,104 contracts.