Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market was lower Thursday despite positive outside markets. To that end, the U.S. dollar was lower, while the Dow Jones, the energies, and gold were collectively higher. Additionally, U.S. retail sales were unexpectedly higher, and that number should have also been supportive to the cotton market but it was not.    

To reiterate, retail sales unexpectedly rose in May, which negated the U.S. dollar's earlier strength. Retail sales for May rose 0.3%, compared to the estimated 0.2% drop economists were anticipating.    

Friday afternoon, the CFTC will update its weekly commitment of traders report. Last week, the managed-money funds net-long some 4,000 contracts.    

Heading into Friday's session, December cotton is down 2.22 cents for the week, up 0.13 cent for the month, and negative some 1.28 cents on the year.    

July cotton will enter its delivery on June 26. The contract will expire on July 7.    

Monday is a federal holiday, and thus the market will be closed.    

Thursday, July settled at 80.64 cents, down 1.15 cents and December 2023 ended at 79.60 cents, 0.51 cent lower. Estimated volume was 38,543 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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