By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market was sharply lower Thursday amid poor export-sales data. The hope of some traders was to see another round of outstanding sales, given the recent low in old crop prices. However, that was not to be. In fact, China canceled a sizable lot and shifted other bales to Vietnam. Its action may be considered punitive to the Biden administration. Recently, the U.S., the UK, Australia and Europe have been pushing China on her alleged slave labor situation. There was also a huge cancellation for Indonesia

The cotton market is closed Friday for Easter but resumes normal trading Sunday night. The Labor Department will issue its monthly jobs report Friday morning, while the CFTC will release its weekly commitment of traders report Friday afternoon. Regarding the unemployment report, expectations call for 647,000 non-farm jobs versus last month’s 347,000. On the CFTC, the last count had managed-money speculators net long 59,000 contracts. At their peak they were 80,000, plus or minus, contracts net long.

Thursday, May cotton closed at 77.95 cents down 2.93 cents, July settled at 79.27 cents, down 2.90 cents and December ended at 77.91 cents, down 2.19 cents; estimated volume was 52,440 contracts.