By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market finished lower Tuesday as USDA’s weekly condition report actually improved the nation’s 2020 crop, as well as the state of Texas. Traders had been pushing the buy side of the market based upon recent weather adverse outlooks that became disappointed. As it goes, those forecasts called for abnormally hot and dry conditions to persist. However, given the anticipatory nature of the market, it may be the trade has “dialed in,” to those adverse conditions, thus prices retreated.

The U.S. dollar failed to hold recent building support. To that end, the buck has dropped below key technical support lines and appears poised to test its February 2018 low of 8800, plus or minus. This favorable weakness in the dollar comes at time when the Chinese need to catch up on their phase-one commitments.

For Tuesday, December cotton closed at 62.93 cents, down 0.35 cent, March settled at 63.83 cents, down 0.36 cent and December 2020 finished at 63.49 cents, down 0.26 cent.