Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market was higher Wednesday, but nonetheless, acted somewhat lethargic. Technically, the old crop is operating under the bearish influence of its reversal session from April 14. Traders continue to monitor the weather, money flow and outside markets.    

Thursday, USDA will issue its weekly export-sales data. The past two weeks saw back-to-back marketing-year low sales, and China was a major canceller. To that end, China's COVID-19 zero tolerance policy is beginning to slow its economic engine. Supposedly, cotton apparel shipments from China are influx as its ports and logistics systems are clogged. China has been the biggest buyer of U.S. cotton this year.    

Crude oil rebounded from earlier lows as front-month April WTI expired Wednesday. In addition, the DOE reported a huge 8 million bales draw in its inventory report from Wednesday morning. There have also been some outages from certain Libyan oil fields and refineries, thus tightening the world's supply. Essentially, some 550,000 barrels of Libyan oil has been taken off the global market.    

Wednesday, May Cotton settled at 140.39 cents, up 0.71 cent, July closed at 138.88 cents, up 0.55 cent and December finished at 121.02 cents, 0.09 cent higher; estimated volume was 26,587 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com

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