By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market was able to ignore a massive secondary meltdown in the Dow Jones and related stock markets to finish its Friday session markedly higher. For the week, December cotton was up 0.03 cent and thus far for the month, it’s down 0.05 cent.

The market will be closed Monday in observance of Labor Day weekend. However, next week will bring several key cotton reports. On Tuesday, USDA will issue its normal crop condition report. Last week saw the nation’s crop decline 2 percentage points in the good-to-excellent categories. Then, because of the holiday, weekly export-sales are pushed back to 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. In addition, USDA will release its monthly supply-demand data that same day. Last month the trade was disappointed when the government increased the size of the 2020 crop to slightly over 18.00 million bales. At that time, traders were anticipating a crop of 17.20 million. so, it seems someone has some “adjusting” to do.

Chart-wise, December cotton has the appearance of a double top formation. The market’s initial high came late August at 66.45 cents, with the latter part of the formation being the early September high of 66.44 cents.

If the market is unable to hurdle those highs next week, the double top pattern is apt to take on more credibility. With Speculators already heavily net long the market, any disappointment on their part may cause them to begin exiting (selling) the positions.

Friday, December cotton closed at 64.99 cents, up 0.71 cent, March went out at 65.98 cents, up 0.68 cent and December 2021 settled at 65.68, 0.50 cent higher. Estimated volume was 21,974 contracts.