By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

Wednesday’s rally in the U.S. stock market helped to halt cotton’s hemorrhaging, and the anticipation of Friday’s report from USDA possibly holding a friendly surprise allowed it to close higher. The anticipation, (or the hope) for Friday’s reports is that China will be a meaningful buyer of U.S. cotton, as well as the crop report revealing lower production and lower ending stocks.

The U.S. dollar turned lower Wednesday as it reached several overhead technical targets. The dollar has become extremely oversold as traders were anticipating a new COVID-19 stimulus from congress, but no legislation has been agreed upon. Thus, the dollar took a steep nosedive. However, in its oversold status, short-covering set in.

The six- to 10-day weather forecast has rain in the for the U.S. Delta and the Southeast. Texas, as well, is scheduled to receive a heavy dose of precipitation over the one to five days. Of course, these rains are coming when the crop is beginning to open, and really being too late to help production in many areas. Additionally, Texas saw some extremely cold temperatures overnight.

For Wednesday, December cotton closed at 64.20 cents, up 0.18 cent, March ended at 65.18 cents, up 0.13 cent and December 2021 settled at 64.90 cents, 0.02 cent higher. Estimated volume was 26,107 contracts.