Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market was sharply lower Thus day amid poor sales and exports. Traders also saw the U.S. dollar somewhat recover from its sell-off Wednesday, while totally ignoring the stout Dow Jones.    

USDA issued its weekly sales and exports earlier in the day. Unfortunately, net sales for both crop years (68,400 and 7,100) combined didn't match the sales of just the current season from last week. China actually cancelled 49,000 bales. Shipments at 177,600 were a tad higher when compared to last week's 165,000 bales.    

The Dow Jones was sharply higher Thursday as certain economic reports suggested the economy grew faster than expected. One of those reports was the Third Quarter GDP. It showed an increase of 2.6% versus expectations for 2.3% growth. This is the first report indicating positive growth for 2022, and it eased some traders' fears about a recession.    

Crude oil was higher Thursday, extending the rally of the previous session some 3%. There seems to be new-found optimism over the record U.S. crude exports, plus signs that some recession fears are waning. Additionally, the U.S. dollar weakened in early trading.    

For Thursday, December closed at 75.11 cents, down 2.71 cents, March 2023 finished at 74.81 cents, down 2.57 cents and July 2023 settled at 73.78 cents, 1.91 cents lower; estimated volume was 38,046 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

(c) Copyright 2022 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.