By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

USDA did “bless” the cotton market with supportive numbers Tuesday. In its February supply/demand report, the 2020 crop was left unchanged (14.95 million bales) while exports were increased to 15.50 million, thus causing ending stocks to fall to 4.30 million bales. Of course, heading into the report, the spot March had already risen over 6 cents before the report was published, so a bit of profit taking may have occurred Tuesday. 

The market will now focus on Thursday’s weekly export sales for additional clues to future demand. Also, supposedly there will be a private 2021 acres survey issued this Friday morning, or at least, that is the “street talk.” Also on Friday afternoon the CFTC will provide its spec-hedge data via its commitments of traders report. Certain managed-money speculators have been heavily net long for several months.

Next Monday the market will be closed in observance of President’s Day. That will push next week’s export sales to Friday. Then, spot March cotton will enter its delivery on Feb. 22. There remains a big open interest in the spot month to be rectified.

Tuesday, March cotton closed at 86.93 cents, up 2.65 cents, July settled at 88.89 cents, up 2.46 cents and December cotton ended at 83.67 cents, up 1.55 cents; estimated volume was 91,478 contracts.