By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market ended its Monday session slightly higher on moderate volume. After last week’s two-sided crop and export news, the market started this week somewhat in neutral gear. However, the spillover effect of the heavy bullish buying in the grain complex helped to buoy cotton’s price. Additionally, the U.S. dollar was lower, while the weather outlook for much of West Texas remained hot and dry. At some point, whether it rains or not will be inconsequential as some of the crop will be beyond salvation. Nonetheless, an August rain in certain areas would greatly benefit the 2020 crop’s development.

To that end, Monday afternoon, USDA will report on the latest condition of the crop. Last week saw the crop overall good/excellent categories diminish. This week’s data is expected to show additional deterioration.

The U.S. dollar threatens to make new lows for the move. With gold and silver rallying and Biden supposedly leading in the election polls, currency traders have taken to selling into the buck. However, if additional congressional stimulus gets passed, that would dilute the dollar’s buying power all the more. As it stands, the dollar is not that far from its 2018 February low of 8815.

For today, December cotton closed at 63.28 cents, up 0.43 cent, March ended at 64.19 cents, up 0.43 cent and December 2021 settled at 63.75 cents, up 0.18 cent. Estimated volume was 12,782 contracts.