By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market sloughed off bullish exports-sales Thursday to focus on the uncertainty of the coronavirus. From various health sources, the virus has now popped up the Philippines and India and other cases are expected to appear. Currently, there is a discrepancy between Beijing’s official number of infections and death versus several well-respected health organizations. To that end, Russia has closed her entire border with China.

Earlier in the day, USDA reported marketing-year-highs sales for the current crop year, with China leading the way with triple-digit purchases. It also bought heavy in the new crop, as well as a portion of Pima. Thursday’s report was the very news that the market was wanted to see, but again, coronavirus scare proved too dominating.

Lacking any clear assessment as to the virus’ intensity and reach, it’s likely the cotton market may sustain additional liquidation ahead of this weekend. That is, given open interest has dramatically increased since the August fall harvest low, as speculators flipped from net short to net long, the situation may be prime for a deeper sell-off. Yet, heading into Friday’s session spot March cotton is off about 0.35 cent, which seems impossible to believe, given all of this week’s volatility. However, there remains Friday’s session to go.

March cotton closed at 69.05 cents, down 1.01 cents; July cotton settled at 70.50 cents, down 0.98 cent; with December closed down 0.76 cent at 69.95 cents. The volume Thursday was 30,838.