Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

Affected by a sharply lower Dow Jones and a spike-up in the U.S. dollar, the cotton market seemingly only had one path to take Wednesday, and that was down. The financial markets were rattled all the more Wednesday morning when news that international banking giant Credit Suisse was having some sort of money troubles.    

The energies collectively took a sharp nosedive as well. The drop came as global risk markets sold off following news that Credit Suisse's biggest investor, the Saudi National Bank, would not provide more assistance for the embattled bank. The news led to a more than 20% drop in the bank's U.S.-listed shares. It also raised concern over the state of the global banking system less than a week after two U.S. regional banks failed.    

Thursday, USDA will issue its weekly export sales. Last week saw less sales, but stronger shipments. However, as the world stresses over global banks, economic activity may be impaired.    

New crop December was flirting with going below the 80-cent mark Wednesday. With USDA's Planting Intentions out in two weeks, that data may not even be close to accurate.    

Wednesday, May 2023 finished at 79.11 cents, down 2.26 cents, July settled at 79.81 cents, down 2.12 cents and December 2023, ended at 80.95 cents, 1.71 cents lower; estimated volume was 42,008 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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