December cotton finished moderately lower Wednesday on an estimated volume of 20,200 contracts traded. The ICE Futures have been the recent ire of producers and speculators alike for its unwillingness to respond bullishly to the widespread devastation of Hurricane Michael.

Nonetheless, the market appears to be weighed down with the international concerns of trade and tariffs, and the uncertainty of just how much loss actually occurred to the Southeastern cotton crop.

Even as the market wobbles about, a rise in open interest suggests new buyers have entered the trade. Of course, the negative aspect of that participation is if those speculators (whom probably bought the market because of the storm) ever become disappointed, they may liquidate, which will usher in more selling.

Another negative is the on-going strength of the U.S. dollar. Recent strong earnings from several major companies may prompt the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates in its December meeting. Additionally, the brewing spat with Saudi Arabia has global traders flocking to the dollar in something of a flight-to-quality move driving it higher as well.

Thursday, USDA will issue its weekly sales and exports reports at 8:30am eastern time. Of late, sales have been suffering, although this season’s pace is running ahead of the government’s 2018-19 forecast.

December cotton closed Wednesday at 7792, down 41, March cotton was 7944, down 34, and Red December finished 7690, up 10 points.