The ICE Futures finished lower Friday on moderate volume of 15,800 contracts. The session was dominated by traders positioning themselves for next week’s U.S.-China trade talks. If some sort of compromise is reached, it ought to be a boon to the financial and commodities markets. Naturally, the converse would be true as well.

For the week, December cotton finished about 400 points lower, on its greatest volume count since the middle of June.

In addition to next week’s trade talks, USDA will issue its usual crop condition data on Monday and its weekly sales and exports on Thursday. That sales number should be interesting as it will reflect the time the market declined after the August supply-demand report. Hopefully, big foreign business was generated on that decline.

December cotton settled at 8139 down 41, March 19 finished 8171, off 30, and December 19 at 7738, 12 lower.