ICE cotton sold off to close under 80 cents on May Tuesday in anticipation of tomorrow’s acreage report. Tomorrow is also the last trading day of the month as well as first quarter of the year. The average expectation of next crop’s acreage is somewhere around 10.5 million acres, or roughly 15% increase from a year ago. May contract high was reached at the beginning of this month and has since entered the sideways trading pattern. Last week’s pull back took us to the bottom of the near term trading range, and today’s sell off was mostly technical related while the supply/demand pipeline remains to be tight.

Cotton has performed well despite the steadily rising cert stocks, the overall firmness in dollar and quieter activities in the physical market. The recent correction did some damage to the technical picture and today’s sell off was accompanied with decent volume. The sideways trading pattern should continue and the short term trading range should hold, but any rebound stopped below 81.50 basis May will keep us stay under pressure. We look to tomorrow’s report for clues on the market direction.