Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market was sharply lower to limit down Thursday as China was a massive killer of previous sales. Similar to Thanksgiving, in which China canceled enough cotton sales to render a weak negative number that week, it repeated that action Thursday, Dec. 22. In addition, third-quarter GDP was out showing better-than-expected results. Thus, the Dow Jones precipitously sold down nearly 800 points. With Friday being the last trading day ahead of a long holiday weekend, it will take a "Christmas Miracle" to rally the cotton market.    

The market will trade normal hours on Friday, but will be closed on Monday, reopening Tuesday morning.    

Friday afternoon the CFTC will release its weekly commitment of traders report. The closely watched funds have been net long for all of 2022, but of late only barely so. Their current net long position stands at 10,000 contracts. However, some analysts believe that number will likely constrict, the market may be seeing more end-of-the-year liquidation.    

Heading into Friday's session, spot March remains up some 2.38 cents for the week, but down 0.31 cent for the month and down 5.12 cents for the year.    

For Thursday, March 2023 finished at 84.30 cents, down 4.00 cents and July 2023 settled at 83.51 cents, 3.26 cents lower; estimated volume was 22,875 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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