Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market settled Monday anywhere from sharply higher to limit up, in contrast to Friday's bearish trade. The recovering Dow, a much-maligned U.S. dollar and some cash cotton liquidation all helped in the market's "rags-to-riches" trade.    

The U.S. government, in all its financial arms, was out in full force Monday, assuring the public of the soundness of the banking system. It was noted that the Federal Reserve may suspend its rate hike next week. Such action drove the U.S. dollar down.    

The CFTC issued its Commitments of Traders report on Friday, and its data showed that managed-money funds were net sellers last week. They are now net short some 13,238. This is their first net-short position in a great while, with their last largest short position being 45,000 contracts in July 2019.    

Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will issue its Consumer Price Index. The CPI is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. Last month the year-over-year core CPI was 5.6%.    

Crude oil prices traded in a wild and volatile session Monday as fears of the banking crisis raised fears of a demand scrunch. However, some increases from China, as well as bargain-hunting energy bulls, allowed energies to mitigate their deepest losses.    

Monday, May 2023 finished at 81.18 cents, up 3.00 cents, July settled at 81.65 cents, up 2.71 cents and December 2023, ended at 82.26 cents, 2.01 cents higher; estimated volume was 61,016 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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