By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent
The cotton market closed fractionally lower as first-of-the-month buying never emerged. To that end, the U.S./China trade talks suspended with no definite action on cotton, only the promise that China will buy non-specific amounts of US agricultural products. For the week, Spot March cotton is down 0.49 cent, within a weekly range of 1.70 cents.
This week also saw the first export-sales data in five weeks, however, the numbers reflected the time period ending December 20, 2018. Nonetheless, the report showed marketing-year-highs for the old crop, but China was a net negative canceler of previous purchases. Next week’s export-sales will reflect the week of December 27, 2018.
Eventually, USDA will catch-up on its back-log of delayed data, culminating in one combined report for of January 10 to February 14 on February 22. Afterwards, provided the government doesn’t shutdown again, USDA will resume a normal reporting schedule.
The Labor Department reported stunning jobs data Friday morning of 302,000 non-farm jobs compared to expectation of 170,000 jobs. It was the single highest monthly job growth in 11 months. All those jobs may result into an increase of domestic textile demand.
Still, cotton sold off right into its Friday close, violating an obvious support line stemming for the January 3 low. Given the recent uptick in open interest, the market carried a certain vulnerability as the speculative long position had grown. We saw an inkling of such selling in this afternoon’s sell-off.
March cotton settled at 73.64 cents, down 0.76 cent, July was 76.21 cents, down 0.69 cent and December finished at 74.12 cents down 0.08 cent. Friday’s estimated volume was 41,005.
