By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst
After three down days, and losing some 5 cents in the process, the cotton market corrected higher Wednesday. However, short-covering speculators were met with producer fixation selling that stymied the rally. Nonetheless, July cotton ended the day with near triple-digit gains.
Spot May cotton settled its final price at 54.83 cents. It had been in delivery since April 24, but only saw 10 notices issued. Now, July Futures remains the sole old crop contract for the 2019-20 season.
The cotton market will face several reports heading into the weekend, including Thursday’s exports-sales form USDA and weekly jobless claims. Then, on Friday, the Labor Department will issue its employment data for April. Last month saw some 700,000 jobs lost, but traders are anticipating numbers four times greater.
July cotton ends “hump day” standing about 1.33 cents down on the week, and 2.82 cents down on the month.
July cotton closed at 54.51 cents, up 0.93 cent, December closed at 56.21 cents, up 0.81 cent and March finished at 57.17 cents, up 0.61 cent. Estimated volume was 22,496 contracts.