ICE Futures were down across the board Wednesday on strong volume of 25,000 contracts. Chart-wise, Wednesday’s session would be classified as an “inside day” meaning the high/low range of Wednesday was inside that of Tuesday.

Clearly, the market is marking time until Friday’s all-important supply-demand data. To that end, one closely watched analyst is sporting an average production guess of 18.39 million bales (18-19 million range). The July number was 18.50 million, which, in itself, was a million bale cut.

World stocks are expected at 77.31 million bale versus the July estimate of 77.84 million bales.

However, as far as other potentially market-moving data, first in line will be Thursday’s weekly sales and exports. Last week saw some small cancellations from China, but a rather obvious large sale to Vietnam.

It was assumed the larger Vietnam number may have been camouflaging some Chinese purchases. Still, a big negative Wednesday was China’s announcement of tariffs on U.S. waste cotton yarn and recycled fiber as a retaliatory action against certain U.S. import taxes set to take effect on August 23.

December cotton settled 8718, down 72, March 8747, down 61, and December 19 at 8068, down 32.