The cotton market was gingerly higher Monday as “hope springs eternal” regarding the U.S./China trade talks. There was renewed optimism for the trade talks when it was announced President Trump and China’s President Xi had a lengthy phone consultation over the weekend. Supposedly, a U.S. delegation leaves for China January 7 to restart fact-to-fact talks.

Still, Monday’s trade was very tedious as the range for Spot March was 0.70 cent, and the total estimated volume for the ICE cotton complex was 12,300 contracts. However, a growing concern for traders is lack of information flow due to the government shutdown.

Last week USDA did not issue its weekly sales and export report, nor did the CFTC publish its highly watched commitment-of-traders data. To that end, there is a real risk USDA will miss this Friday’s weekly sales and exports and possibly next week’s January supply-demand report.

For the month. March cotton was down 1.25 cents and for the year it was off 1.55 cents. Overall, this year the 2018 market was a real bear (no pun intended) as weather adversities ruined much of the crop, while Uncle Sam upended prices.

Monday, March cotton settled at 72.20 cents, up 0.01 cent, July was 74.63 cents, up 0.11 cent and December was 73.30 cents, up 0.07 cent.