December cotton settled higher on news that China was willing to return to Washington for new trade talks. A delegation is scheduled to arrive in this country late August, hopefully to work out details for an even larger trade meeting this fall.

The news was initially taken as a market positive for cotton. After dropping nearly 7% in value since last Friday, the market had become technically oversold and obviously was in need of bullish news. Yet, one would have thought its recovery would have been more dynamic, but that was not the case. December cotton ran up midway of Wednesday’s trading range before turning lower. Still, the market closed higher with triple-digit gains on an estimated volume of 25,000 contracts.

In other news, weekly sales and exports this morning were considered unfriendly to neutral, while the Turkish Lira was able to experience no more damage. As mentioned previously, Qatar is loaning Turkey some $15 billion to help stabilize the situation.

December cotton settled 8180, up 106 points, March 19 finished at 8201, up 97 points, and December 19 ended at 7750, up 66 points.