Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst
After Thursday's collapse, the cotton market attempted to rein in the "bear" with a mixed close. Unfortunately, the mathematical difference between Thursday's close versus Friday's still slants to the bearish side. Next week is the last week of April, thus some end-of-the-month squaring may occur.
Friday afternoon, the CFTC will issue its latest trader's update. In last week's Commitment of Traders report, the managed-money funds had reduced their net short position to 14,773 contracts. Of course, Friday's report will reflect the numbers as of Tuesday's close.
The one to five-day forecast now calls for rain up to one-inch plus over West Texas and surrounding areas. Additionally, the 6-to-10 and 8-to-14 day outlooks slant towards normal to above normal opportunities for rainfall for that region.
May cotton enters its delivery this Monday. Currently, its open interest stands at 3,971 contracts.
On Monday, USDA will update the planting progress of the 2023 crop. Last week saw the nation's cotton crop at 8% complete.
On Tuesday, the Confidence Consumer Board will issue its monthly Confidence survey. This monthly report shows how optimistic (or pessimistic) consumers are about the state of the economy. This is generally expressed in how people save and how they spend their money. The more they spend, the more confident they are about the direction and state of the economy. If people save more, though, it generally means they aren't feeling as optimistic. Although the indicator was slightly higher for March, the cutoff date for April's survey was March 20, about ten days after the bank failures in the United States.
Friday, May 2023 finished at 78.41 cents, down 0.83 cent, July settled at 80.15 cents, up 0.06 cent and December 2023 ended at 80.38 cents, 0.20 cent lower. Estimated volume was 24,275 contracts.
Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com
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