The cotton market finished nearly limit-down Friday as fears the new U.S. tariffs will further widen the trade war. Just this week, President Trump implemented a 10% tariff on additional Chinese imports. The new tariffs are set to take effect on September 1. The news sent most commodities markets sharply lower.

However, on Friday, some of those commodities, such as the grains, did manage a small recovery bounce. However, with apparel makers really crying the blues, in additional to all of cotton’s other bearish fundamentals, the market zoomed to limit-down, closing under the 60-cent mark!

For the month, which is only two days old, December cotton is down 4.45 cents points. Friday’s estimated volume was 49,050 contracts compared to the highest volume day of this move which was July 9th at 57,500 contracts.

On Monday, USDA will issue its latest crop condition data. On its last supply-demand report, the government pegged the 2019 crop at 22 million bales, but now some analysts are thinking about an ultimate 23 million-bale crop. The next report on supply-demand comes out August 12.

For Friday, December cotton settled at 59.42 cents, down 2.95 cents, March closed at 60.71 cents, off 2.85 cents and December 2020 closed at 63.70 cents, down 1.52 cents.