Currently, the 2019 crop is 35% harvested, with the next gathering update coming this Monday. To that end, there remains a sizable amount of the crop to be taken in and digested.

Friday, USDA will release it delayed weekly sales and exports data at 8:30 a.m. Last week, sales showed improvement, while shipments were lower. the fundamental the market would like to see is China no longer cancel its old orders; allowing them to be filled.

In other peripheral news linked to cotton, there was a Brexit agreement Thursday, suggesting the two economies might avoid a “hard landing.” Europe is a huge textile consuming part of the world. Also, the U.S. and Turkey reached a cease-fire agreement in the Syrian situation. A friendly end to that fracas should not entail tariffs and counter-tariffs.

There is a weather event building in the Gulf of Mexico. It is now approaching the lower under belly of the U.S. Southeaster/Delta region. Depending on its final development, it could eventually prove to be a detriment to the harvest.

For Thursday, December cotton settled 64.99 cents, up 0.45 cent, March finished at 65.51 cents, up 0.32 cent and December 2020 ended at 66.36 cents, down 0.23 cent. Estimated volume was 32,126 contracts.