The cotton market lost more bullish ground Wednesday, but in a slow-motion version of trading. All day the market would eke out new lows on small volume, rarely trying to gain any upside traction. Traders spent their unraveling bull spreads and outright positions. The market saw no outside inspiration either as the Chicago grains were off as well.

Thursday, the market will see the latest weekly export-sales data, and clearly those numbers need to be friendly. That report will be followed by Friday’s unemployment data from the Labor Department. Hopefully, the sharp reduction in COVID-29 infections will result in more jobs created. Expectations are for 185,000 non-farm jobs versus last month’s 49,000 jobs.

Friday afternoon the CFTC will issue its commitment of traders report. We think this report will account for the massive reversal of Feb. 25. At least the market will be able to see whether the net long position held by certain trend-following speculators had increased at that time.

Crude oil was confusingly up over $2 per barrel Wednesday, despite the DOE reporting the single largest inventory build ever of 21 million barrels. However, with the OPEC meeting Thursday, there are high flying rumors the cartel will not increase production as was previously thought.

Wednesday, May cotton closed at 88.45 cents, down 2.54 cents, July settled at 89.41 cents, down 2.51 cents and December cotton ended at 85.01 cents, down 1.44 cents; estimated volume was 37,652 contracts.