Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

After its initial dive Wednesday morning, the cotton market recovered a portion of its earlier losses. However, Wednesday's volume was a moderate 16,000 contracts. Perhaps aiding in that comeback was a sharply higher Dow Jones. As of this writing, the Dow is up 450 points on the improved earnings of certain companies.    

Thursday morning, USDA will issue its weekly export sales. Last week, net sales were a negative 4000 bales for the current season. New crop saw only 55,000 bales sold with exports off 24% at 252,900 bales.    

On Friday, the Labor Department will publish its jobs report. Current estimates suggest some 250,000 non-farm jobs were created during July.    

Wednesday OPEC+ met and decided to increase daily production by 100,000 barrels. Some analysts suggested the minuscule increase was a direct insult to President Biden. Recently, Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to inquiry about increased production.    

The U.S. Dollar Index was higher Wednesday after the ISM data showed a surprise pickup. That improvement, along with hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials Tuesday, helped buoy the dollar.    

Weather-wise, the one- to five-day holds virtually no rain for West Texas. The six- to 10-day calls for above-normal temperatures, but the eight- to 14-day indicates normal precipitation. 

For Wednesday, December closed at 94.43 cents, down 0.38 cent, March 2023 finished at 92.05 cents, down 0.53 cent and July 2023 settled at 88,62 cents, 0.66 cent lower; estimated volume was 16,368 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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