General Comments: Cotton was higher as the buyers appeared once again to cover short cash market positions. Trends remain up and the tone of the market remains positive. Current buying is reflecting the fact that merchants need to buy futures to cover on-call positions rather than the overall fundamentals presented in the USDA reports last week. The reports showed that there is plenty of cotton here and around the world, but getting it out of producers' hands has been difficult and prices have been much higher than most commercials had expected.

Commercials are being forced now to buy cotton at higher levels to cover the big on-call position of unpriced cotton that they have contracted for. Trends are still up. The hurricanes and the freeze appear to have really damaged quality and the quality losses have forced mills and exporters to pay up for better quality Cotton.  Producers remain limited sellers at best.

Overnight News: The Delta and the Southeast will get precipitation late this weekend. Temperatures should be above normal by the weekend.  Texas will see mostly dry conditions. Temperatures will be warm through the weekend. The USDA average price is now 79.56 ct/lb.  ICE said that certified stocks are now 48,067 ba1es, from 46,067 bales yesterday. USDA said that net Upland cotton export sales were 275,100 bales this year and 104,600 bales next year. Net Pima sales were 11,100 bales this year and 0 bales next year.

Chart Trends:  Trends in Cotton are mixed to up with no objectives.  Support is at 8000, 7940, and 7870 March, with resistance of 8400, 8460, and 8520 March.