By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market ended sharply higher Wednesday as the fall of the dollar and strong export-sales data encouraged speculative buying. After the release of USDA’s robust sales, the market quickly jumped into triple-digit gains and never looked back.

Heading into Thursday’s abbreviated session, March cotton is down 1.13 cents, a result of Monday corrective break, but up 3.88 cents on the month and 5.25 cents for the year.

The market will halt trading at 1:05 p.m. eastern time. The U.S. dollar continued on its bearish path Wednesday. Long-term traders are eyeing the February 2018 lows of the 88-cent area as the next downside target. The dollar’s weak condition is due to the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as new stimulus spending passed by the U.S. Congress. The market will close at 1:05 Thursday and of course be closed all day Friday.

Trading resumes at 8 a.m. Monday morning. We will issue only a morning update Thursday, but no afternoon comments.

Wednesday, March Cotton closed at 76.14 cents, up 1.32 cents, July settled at 77.27 cents, up 1.28 cents and December 2021 ended at 73.27 cents, up 0.94 cent; estimated volume was 21,213 contracts.