By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market was somewhat overwhelmed Monday by the meltdown in the Dow, crude and gold. At one time Monday, the Dow Jones was down well over 1,000 points. Such volatility proved too much for traders across all markets and thus it was a hugely bearish day.

Monday afternoon, USDA will issue its crop condition data. Last week the crop was rated 45% good to excellent, but traders are wanting to see if the government allowed for any accounting of Hurricane Sally.

This Thursday USDA will report its weekly sales and export numbers. Last week saw a massive sales number of 519,000 bales, with 400,000 allocated to China. However, as steep as the sale was, the cotton market hardly moved, and actually finished lower on Friday.

The U.S. dollar shot higher as the surrounding volatility caused traders to take a “flight-to-safety” move. To that end, Great Britain announced a 10 p.m. curfew to hopefully stave off another round of COVID-19. There has been talk of another complete shutdown of the English nation and even parts of Europe. Such action was one reason the U.S. dollar zoomed higher.

December Cotton closed at 65.24 cents, down 0.42 cent, March closed at 66.24 cents, down 0.34 cent and December 2021 finished at 65.75 cents, down 0.22 cent. Estimated volume was 21,621 contracts.