Cotton lost some of its bullish bloom late in the session Wednesday as traders are nervously approaching the market on a day-by-day basis. Such is a reasonable slant as any bull market, like a real bull, must eat every day and Wednesday lacked new friendly news. That could likely change by Thursday when USDA will issue its weekly sales and exports data. Despite the fact China has been deliberately absent from the export market for most of this season, the demand business remain on pace to achieve the government’s pre-ordained target.

Also on Friday, the Labor Department will publish its March monthly jobs data. Expectations are calling for non-farm jobs created to be 173,000 jobs. Another poor showing tomorrow would suggest the domestic jobs market is weakening.

The U.S.-China trade talks are rumored to have finally ironed-out the big issues, but the two sides are still haggling over how to develop a serious enforcement mechanism. Still, not all of the big-ticket problems have been settled. For example, China wants Washington to remove existing tariffs on Chinese goods before signing a deal. However, a new twist is the Chinese did admit there is definite evidence of their forced technology transfer activity. Clearly, the trade talks are murky.

Wednesday May cotton closed at 77.05 cents, down 0.22 cent, July was at 77.77 cents, 0.26-cent lower and December was at 76.25 cents down 0.02 cent. Estimated volume for Wednesday’s session was 34,700 contracts traded.