Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

Cotton's wee hour reversal to 99 cents failed to hold, and New Crop ended lower today. Many traders were hoping to see that long-overdue turnaround, but the market continued to "bleed". Timing-wise, the market is approaching end-of-the-month, end-of-the-quarter, and mid-year. Those are calendar marks where funds and huge investors typically revamp their positions. Overall, the psychology of today's lower close was "tall".    

Supposedly China is lifting certain COVID-19 restrictions, which many traders took as potentially friendly, but today's lower close momentarily debunked that notion. Most likely the managed-money funds and large investors continue to liquidate due to fears of demand destruction from China and chart technicals. The December Market is way below its 100-day average of 113.00.    

This Thursday USDA will issue its weekly exports-sales report, and the big hope is that there will be no cancellations in that report. For the acres report, some traders feel 2002 plantings will exceed the March intentions. However, it's not planted acres but how they yield that matters. Exports are out at 8:30 am, while acres will be released at noon.    

For today, July Cotton settled at 100.12, down 23, December closed at 93.48, minus 57, and March 23 finished at 89.40, 12 points lower. Today's estimated volume was 58,363 contracts.  

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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