Cotton Looks Lower Wednesday

After two consecutive unsuccessful tries at the upside, the cotton market is slightly down Wednesday. Unfortunately, the recent news of India’s reducing import tariffs and USDA’s newly launched promotion plan was not enough to ignite prices higher. Traders will now assess certain upcoming reports for price influences.

This Thursday, USDA will issue fresh export sales data. Last week saw net sales for old crop at 153,000 bales, up 17%, and new crop at 112,000. Weekly shipments were 317,700, up 10% weekly.

This Friday, the Labor Department will release its jobs numbers for May. Last month’s data showed a much higher employment rate than most were expecting. For this report, expectations call for non-farms jobs to be at 95,000 versus the prior 115,000 jobs.

Also on Friday, the CFTC will update its Commitments of Traders report. Last week’s numbers showed the occurrence of net-selling for the first time in a dozen weeks. Managed-money funds sold some 7,400 positions, reducing their overall net-long position to some 54,000 contracts. The data will be out at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

The 6- to 10-day forecast (June 8-June 12) shows slightly above normal temperatures for the Texas Panhandle, but has normal readings for central Texas and eastward across the Delta and the Southeast U.S. Rain-wise, most of the U.S. Cotton Belt looks to have slightly above normal opportunities for precipitation.   

Chart support for December cotton stands at 79.60 cents and 79.00 cents, with resistance around 81.75 cents and 82.25 cents. Wednesday morning’s estimated volume is 18,275 contracts.

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com or by calling (229) 890-7780.