By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The market finished higher Monday as a new Chinese delegation would leave China on Jan. 13 for a signing ceremony on Jan. 15. The signing of phase one trade deal will come after months of arduous negotiations. Supposedly, China will buy some $40 billion of U.S. agricultural products. For cotton, it is rumored it may buy as an additional 800,000 bales.

Another potential positive for the market may be a signed trade treaty weakens the U.S. dollar. For some time now global investors have flocked to the dollar driving it higher. A weaker dollar may substantially help cotton prices in 2020. Interestingly, for the first time all crop months are above 70-cents. This situation is psychologically friendly, as speculators will be encouraged to buy the market.

For Monday, March cotton settled at 70.04 cents, up 0.84 cent, July finished at 71.84 cents, up 0.57 cent and December ended at 71.58 cents, up 0.34 cent. Monday’s estimated volume was 36,577 contracts.