Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

Despite a marketing-year high sales number Thursday morning, the cotton market concluded pretty much unchanged. In the current environment of rising interest rates, many markets lack enthusiasm. Still traders hope to see China come charging back economically, but her recovery remains a process.    

Friday the CFTC will issue its latest traders update. At last count, the managed-money funds had moved from net short to net long.    

Options on March futures expire Friday on the close.   

As of this writing, the Dow Jones gave up a 300-point gain as concerns over the Federal Reserve and future monetary policy offset excitement around the latest batch of corporate earnings. Other indices followed suit. At session highs, the Dow advanced more than 300 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were up 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively. Traders' attitudes reflect the idea that the Fed will have to do a lot more tightening than what Wall Street has factored.    

Heading into Friday's trade, we note that spot March cotton is plus 0.07 cent on the week, but down 0.72 cent on the month, and is positive 2.13 cents on the year.    

Thursday, March 2023 finished at 86.50 cents, plus 0.13 cent, July settled at 86.45 cents, down 0.19 cent and December 2023, ended at 85.27 cents, 0.03 cent lower; estimated volume was 79,064 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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