By Keith Brown DTN Cotton Correspondent
Despite the lack of any prevalent fundamental news and low volume, the cotton market posted yet another life-of-contract low Wednesday. In fact, for the past seven trading days, new crop cotton has posted four such contract low sessions. Disappointed bottom-pickers were pressured out of their long positions, while speculators, whom are already record net short, continued to sell the futures.
Thursday, USDA will release its weekly sales and exports. Last week, the trade saw China was a net canceler of old crop cotton, while it bought none in the new crop. Traders had been expecting some serious cotton business as China promised at the end of G-20 to be a dominant buyer of U.S. agricultural products. The 2018-19 season ends on July 31.
So much of cotton’s fundamentals have been reported at nauseam. That is, The U.S.-China trade talks are stalled, the U.S. crop is robustly rated 56% good to excellent, and to reiterate, speculators are overly net short. So, it seems apparent to market traders and observers that some new fundamental dynamic will have to appear on the global stage to decisively change the sentiment and direction of the market.
For Wednesday, December cotton settled at 62.49 cents, down 0.57 cent, March 63.62 cent, down 0.66 cent and December 2020 finished at 65.50 cents, down 0.53 cent. Estimated volume was 16,100 contracts.