By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market was lower Wednesday even as the phase one deal was signed at a lengthy White House ceremony. For some time the signing event was getting baked into the prices, as that was all the news the market had been hearing. Thus, after the situation happened, it became a classic buy-the-rumor-sell-the-news event. A bearish aspect from the deal was the fact there was a Chinese commitment to buy massive amounts of U.S. goods, but spread out over several sectors of the U.S. economy. Nonetheless, a deal with China is better than no deal.

Thursday, USDA will issue its weekly sales and exports data at 8:30 a.m. Last week’s number were off as they reflected the last week of 2019. Thursday, sales may touch back up to 230,000 to 255,000 bales.

The U.S. dollar finished lower Thursday. The theory is if the U.S.-China deal restores the global economy to a better profitable state, then Forex traders may begin to shed the dollar, and buy the yen and euro.

This weekend will be a three-day holiday as the markets will observe the MLK day. So, until traders and investors study d the terms of the U.S.-China trade, additional selling may emerge.

For Thursday, March cotton closed at 70.32 cents, down 1.06 cents, July settled at 72.31 cents, down 1.05 cents and December ended at 71.96 cents, down 0.55 cent. Estimated volume was 32,560 contracts.