By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

The cotton market suffered a sharp spill early in Friday’s session as traders, fearing the uncertainty of the weekend, liquidated. To that end, the market remains dominated by the Wuhan virus news, despite last week’s record cotton sales and this week’s record cotton shipments, plus a strong job data report.

Still, towards the end of Friday, the market was able to pare the majority of its losses, and thus, despite all the worry and volatility caused by the virus, cotton finished up 0.25 cent for the week.

On Monday, the market will see if Friday’s option expiration for the March contract resulted in any dynamic changes to open interest. Of late, open interest has been coming off as the prices declined, but still the overall number remains huge. Then on Tuesday, USDA will release its February Crop Report.

Some participants are expecting that data to show reduced 2019 production, with possibly lower ending stocks. Thursday will have another round of exports-sales, and supposedly Saturday next week the NCC convention ends with the publication of their membership survey for 2020 acres. So, there remains a ton of data and time for the cotton market to consider.

For Friday, March cotton closed at 67.75 cents, down 0.16 cent, July finished at 69.02 cents, down 0.29 cent and December closed at 68.86 cents, down 0.26 cent. Estimated volume was 76,295 contracts.