By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

After initiating a near 170-point bullish spurt Monday morning, cotton meandered off, to settle some 63 points higher. Earlier in the session, the cotton market was bullishly supported by a strong Dow Jones and rising energies. However, unexpected strength in the U.S. dollar began to stifle the rally. Also, many Asian countries’ markets were closed Monday as an extension of their New Year’s celebrations, thus trading volume was light.

Chart-wise, last week the market failed to close its omicron gap left on the open on Nov. 24 and some bullish traders may have been discouraged by that inaction. Thus, that gap has now become the immediate technical goal for many chart traders.

USDA will issue its first weekly export sales report of the new calendar year this Thursday. Traders are hoping to see another sustained bullish sales and shipments number. To date, sales for 2021/22 have reached 10.45 million bales. That amount is below the previous season’s pace of 11.38 million bales, but is above the five-year average of 10.347 million.

Monday, March cotton settled at 113.23 cents, up .63 cent; July ended at 108.50 cents, up .62 cent; and December finished at 92.95 cents, up .30 cent. Monday’s estimated volume was 16,647 contracts.