Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The market finished sharply higher Monday amid bargain hunters and short covering. Also encouraging the cotton market were stronger outside markets, including the Dow Jones, the grains and the energies, although some of those lost their friendly zeal late in the day. Lastly, a weak U.S. dollar added to the better commodities tone.    

Monday afternoon, USDA will issue its crop condition numbers. Given the extreme weather conditions West Texas has been enduring, the most recent good-to-excellent ratings have been way off their historical pace. Unfortunately, the offset to that situation is poor demand from China.    

Weather-wise, the immediate forecast indicates little rain for Texas, but the Delta and Southeast are expected to see perhaps copious amounts. With that, many locales across South Georgia have been experiencing too much rain. Meanwhile, the six- to 10-day outlook calls for above  to much-above normal temperatures across the U.S., with below normal precipitation in Texas, the Delta and the Southeast. Some international weather tidbits indicate India's Monsoon will continue active with abundant rain in the central and northern parts of the nation, China will continue to be abundantly wet in the northeast and North China Plain this week. Southern Australia will get rain for the next 10 days, with Western Australia the wettest. Lastly, Central Queensland, Australia will get rain midweek.    

For Monday, December closed at 93.00 cents, up 4.29 cents, March 2023 finished at 89.29 cents, up 4.44 cents and July 2023 settled at 85.26 cents, up 4.00 cents; estimated volume was 33,800 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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