The cotton market suffered double-digits losses Friday. The bearish drivers for the trading session were a sharp decline in the Dow Jones over omicron, a strong U.S. dollar, and growth and speculative squaring. Looking into next week, the market will have an abbreviated week as it will be closed on Friday for Christmas Eve. Thus, trading volumes will likely be low, which could exaggerate prices.

Some cotton traders are keeping a nervous vigil for some sort of Chinese political or economic retaliation to the Biden administration. Recently, the administration announced a partial boycott of the Beijing Olympics. Additionally, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation aimed at punishing cotton-related goods being manufactured in the Xinjiang Province.

Ginning activities continue to pace at full bore, although there have been some concerns of slowdown with certain classing offices. The inability for growers to retrieve their grades is keeping some from pricing their 2021 production.

Friday, March cotton settled at 107.30 cents, down 2.38 cents, July ended at 103.35 cents, down 2.02 cents and December ended at 90.04 cents, 0.55 cent lower; Thursday’s estimated volume was 18,826 contracts.