Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

Seemingly tethered to the Dow Jones, the cotton market mimicked the ups and downs of the stock market Monday. To that end, essentially all U.S. financial and commodities markets are anticipating the interest rate announcement from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Currently, there is a respectable amount (some 38%) of traders who expect the central bank to take "zero action" given the onset of the banking crisis.     

A major research firm has released its acres intentions for U.S. major row crops today.  For 2023 cotton acres its number was 10.82 million. This represents 79% of a year ago plantings, which were 13.76 million. USDA's official Prospective Plantings data will be released on March 31.    

The U.S. Dollar was lower Monday as the UBS/Credit Suisse so-called "shotgun wedding" by Swiss officials hoped to tap down global banking fears. Thus, for a moment, the dollar lost some of its flight-to-quality status, causing sellers to emerge. However again, the real driving event will be the Fed's decision two days from Monday.    

We continue to understand that an inordinate amount of 2022 production remains in the hands of producers. Typically, this time of year is marked by rising spring prices as the new crop has yet to be planted and supply is retained by merchants. However, the latter point doesn't seem to be true this year.    

Monday, May 2023 finished at 77.22 cents, minus 0.61 cent, July settled at 77.70 cents, down 0.74 cent and December 2023, ended at 78.81 cents, 0.70 cent lower; estimated volume was 39,956 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

(c) Copyright 2023 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.