By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

Old crop cotton finished slightly lower Wednesday as traders await Thursday’s weekly exports-sales data, as well as further news on the coronavirus.

To the latter, the virus situation is understand in flux, with a lot of misinformation coming across global social media. There are several non-Chinese health sources who suggest the actual number of infected people in China are exponentially higher than the official numbers issued by Beijing. Additionally, now concerns are being raised as to what the real damage to the Chinese economy will be.

Some China watchers suggest the Chinese yuan could lose value in the global currency market and that Chinese economic growth could drop to 5% or even lower due to the potential adverse effects of the Wuhan virus. Thus, if damage is severe enough, the Chinese Central Bank may be forced to implement additional stimulative measures.

To the former, as far as exports-sales are concerned, although current season sales are above the levels most government and private analysts expected, what the market needs to see is a dose of huge weekly shipments. The reason being, sales can always be cancelled, but once U.S. bales have left the shores they don’t comeback.

Wednesday in a White House ceremony, President Trump signed USMCA into law. This legislation replaces the old NAFTA trade agreement of the 1990s, updating and streamlining its provision for the 21st Century.

For Wednesday, March cotton settled at 70.06 cents, down 0.30 cent, July ended at 71.48 cents, down 0.16 cent and December finished 70.71 cents, up 0.06 cent. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 24,279 contract traded.