Cotton Trades in ‘Easy Does It’ Mode

After Thursday’s retreat, the cotton market is trading firmly sideways on the last day of February. The market has been seeing a small influx of recent buying as speculators have become overly bearish and certain positive seasonal tugs seem to be emerging.

Spot March cotton saw zero delivery notices Friday. For the record, some 504 notices have been tendered against the spot month. The delivery period runs through Monday, March 7. 

Friday at 3:30 p.m. EST, the CFTC will issue its weekly Commitments of Traders report. At last count, the managed-money funds had net sold 3,900 contracts, swelling their current bearish position to 79,508 contracts. For context, their record high negative carry, from last October, stands at 81,343 contracts.

Crude oil is sharply higher Friday morning as traders remained nervous over the flow of the U.S./Iranian talks. Thus far, the talks have not reached any acceptable conclusion for the US. The two sides plan to resume negotiations with technical-level discussions scheduled next week in Vienna.

Next Monday ushers in not only a new trading month, but the first month of the historical three-month spring planting window. With that, USDA will issue updated supply-demand tables via the WASDE on March 10, and the highly anticipated 2026 Planting Intentions report on March 31.

Chart support for July cotton stands at 66.70 cents and 66.45 cents, with resistance around 68.00 cents and 68.50 cents. Friday morning’s estimated volume is 10,205 contracts.

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