By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent 

USDA reported not-too-hot supply/demand numbers for its February monthly crop report. The government left U.S. numbers wholly unchanged, even though some traders were expecting another downward nudge to the 2019 production.

However, in an unexpected move, USDA raised global production, while slashing global consumption. Specifically, it raised production in Pakistan (500,000), Brazil (200,000), along with other southern American producing countries (300,000).

Then, as some sort of acknowledgment to the coronavirus, USDA outright lowered China’s domestic consumption by a million bales. The latter move drew some doubts as to the report’s authenticity from several industry sources.

Nonetheless, the market found a way to slough-off the government reporting and ease the ICE Futures slightly higher. After two full trading sessions, spot cotton is up 0.48 cent on the week.

The next two big events for the market will be Thursday’s weekly export-sales, followed by the Saturday’s National Cotton Council’s membership survey for 2020 acres. The NCC is hosting its convention this week, which typically culminates with its acres poll on Saturday.

Of course, constantly running the background of the market is the Wuhan virus. If coronavirus infections can began to accurately subside, there would a surge of psychological relief for the cotton and all other markets.

For Tuesday, March cotton settled at 68.23 cents, up 0.04 cent, July finished at 69.56 cents, up 0.02 cent and December closed at 69.31 cents, up 0.06 cent. Estimated volume was 63,218 contracts.