By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market was sharply lower Thursday as bullish speculators threw in the towel and exited en masse. Their action caused the old crop to end limit down and the new crop to finish sharply lower. Several reasons potentially combined to account for Thursday’s bearish implosion. Those include a stronger dollar, a weak looking chart, fear of Chinese retaliation over the banned XinJiang cotton, end-of-the-month adjustments, and a rise in global COVID-19 infections.

The market has now lost nearly 20 cents from its February high and looks poised for even lower levels. Volume Thursday was a stout 70,000 contracts traded. That is nearly rivaling the massive volumes seen in early February just before the market ascended to its old June tariff high.

The market is anticipating next week’s planting intentions. That data is out on Wednesday, March 31. The January government estimate stands at 12.00 million acres, but of late falling prices should be discouraging acres.

Heading into Friday’s trade, May cotton is down 6.24 cents on the week, down 10.39 cents on the month and down a mere 0.26 cent on the year.

Thursday, May cotton closed at 78.44 cents, down 4.00 cents, July settled at 79.52 cents, down 4.00 cents and December ended at 76.55 cents, down 3.83 cents; estimated volume was 70,810 contracts.