DTN Closing Cotton            04/30 13:37

   Cotton Fumbles at April's End

   Between the chaos of tariffs and end-of-the-month squaring, the cotton 
market was slightly lower Wednesday.

Keith Brown
DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst

   Between the chaos of tariffs and end-of-the-month squaring, the cotton 
market was slightly lower Wednesday. Traders have one eye on the actual cotton 
industry and the other on the outside, such as the highly influential markets 
like the Dow, U.S. dollar and gold. Thus, Wednesday's poor showing by China's 
manufacturing survey as well as an unimpressive Q1 GDP report, definitely put 
cotton on the "defensive side of the ball."

   Spot May cotton saw no deliveries Wednesday. Thus far, there have been nine 
notices issued by StoneX Financial. The stoppers were Macquarie and SG 
Americas. Delivery period will run through May 7.

   Thursday at 8:30 a.m. EDT, USDA will issue its weekly export sales data. 
Last week, saw current season sales at 104,000 off 49%, with shipments around 
299,000 bales, down 11%.

   On Friday, the Labor Department will release its job report for March. 
Expectations for non-farm payrolls are expected to be 129,000. That report is 
out at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

   Also on Friday, the CFTC will update its Commitment of Traders data. Of 
late, the managed-money funds have been exiting the short side of the market. 
At last count, they were net-short some 37,000 contracts. That report will be 
out at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

   For Wednesday, May cotton settled at 65.77 cents, down 58 points; July 
cotton ended at 66.02 cents, minus 47 points; and December finished at 67.79 
cents, 48 points lower. Wednesday's estimated volume was 39,571 contracts.

   Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com




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