Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst
The cotton market was lower/higher Monday amid a sea of red, as nearly all things commodities were negative. The overarching bearish tone affecting the global marketplace revolves around rising interest rates. Last week saw the Federal Reserve hike rates by 50 basis points, and afterwards, to a lesser degree, other central banks followed suit. Of course, there are other market complications besides rising rates, coming in the form of the Ukrainian/Russian War and Chinese COVID-19 lockdowns.
Monday afternoon USDA will issue its weekly crop progress report. Last week, U.S. cotton was 16% planted versus its five-year average of 15% complete.
Weather-wise, the one- to five-day outlook calls for some rain for West Texas. To that end, thunderstorm activity will impact West Texas Tuesday night into Thursday night, possibly resulting in a boost in topsoil moisture. Lubbock and environs look to have a 50% chance of rain from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Yet both the six- to 10-day and the eight- to 14-day forecasts call for below-normal chances of rain and above-normal temperatures.
This Thursday, USDA will issue not only its weekly export-sales report, but also its supply-demand update for May. The crop report is the first stab at global production by USDA for the upcoming crop.
For Monday, July cotton settled at 142.93 cents, down 0.68 cent, December closed at 123.63 cents, down 0.11 cent and March 2023 finished at 118.51 cents, 0.17 cent higher; estimated volume was 26,518 contracts.
Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com
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