December Cotton closed fractionally lower Tuesday in slow technical trade. The possibility of rain for West Texas dominated the daily news. As of Tuesday, rain chances for the beleaguered Texas crop have been upped to 60% plus into Thursday.
Although, USDA just reported nearly one-half of the Texas crop is rated very poor to poor, if Texas were to get a decent rain or two into late July, then some of the West Texas dry-land crop could be salvaged. Clearly, this weather potential bears watching.
In other news, the Trump Administration is considering a 12 billion dollar farm aid package to financially help those producers potentially hurt by the trade tariffs. Details are expected Tuesday afternoon.
Technically, December cotton traded below its low of last Friday. That violation could be seen as a blunt to the bullish psychology. Estimated volume was 14,500 contracts. December 2018 Cotton settled at 8670 down 11, March 2019 at 8669, and December 2019 cotton was 8018 down 20 points.