Very strong commercial buying suddenly appeared as spot cotton dipped below 80 cents, giving us one of the strongest single session gains in many weeks. There was likely some attempts at “bottom picking” by speculators as well. As the chart shows, the lows in December cotton were nearly a perfect 62% “Fibonacci retracement” of the entire bull move from late Fall lows to March highs.

But this afternoonΆs planting progress report from USDA will surely test todayΆs gains. Planting progress made excellent gains last week with 82% of the crop planted, up from 59% a week ago and now within a point of the 5-year average at 83% planted for this date.

NASS also resumed reporting cotton “squaring” progress in this aftenoonΆs report, putting it at 4%, dow 3 pts from the 5-year average and well below last yearΆs figure of 11% for this date.

But before concluding “the bottom is in”, I would note the market was badly oversold, having declined in 9 of the last 11 trading sessions. Furthermore, FridayΆs Commitments of Traders report showed that Trading Funds that have been heavily net short reduced that collective net short position by nearly 18,000 contracts in the preceding week while longs increased their position by more than 3,500 contracts.

I have no advice change for today other than to put advice for catch-up sales on “hold” again. But I am inclined to neither lighten up on hedges or add to them on the basis of this freaky 1-day pop in futures. But if futures can close firm again tomorrow in spite of planting catching up with normal, I will be mightily impressed at the apparent return of demand and may advise lightening up on hedge protection.