By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst
The cotton market ended slightly lower Friday as it could not gain any momentum from a recovering Dow Jones. Specific to the market was that it saw strong export sales data Thursday morning, but that information was somewhat mitigated by a bearish monthly supply and demand report. In that latter report, USDA projected higher domestic and global carryout for the 2020/1021 season.
For the week, Spot July cotton was down 1.95 cents on the week, but up 2.25 cents thus far this month. However, the last of the old crop contracts remains down 11.11 cents for the year.
Friday afternoon, options on July futures will expire. It appears all calls above the 60-cent mark will fade away without value.
Next week, the July market will enter delivery on Wednesday, but not before all on-call, or price-later contracts, held by producers, must be fixed.
The latest weather forecasts are beginning to show a bit more rain for much of the cotton belt. The 8/10 models have rain for much of the cotton belt, which ought to be a bearish event.
July cotton closed down at 59.84 cents Friday, down 0.18 cent, December ended at 59.03 cents, down 0.46 cents and March finished at 59.58 cents, down 0.44 cent. Friday’s estimated volume was 27,298 contracts.