Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market was able to cut its early session steep losses to settle moderately lower Friday. Fear of higher interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and daily increases in the COVID-19 infections rate, pushed prices down. In addition, the market is smarting from the poor weekly export sales of Thursday.    

Next week's calendar will obviously be different. On Monday, USDA will issue its crop progress report. The 2022 Hhrvest may be nearing 80% complete. Then spot December cotton enters delivery on Wednesday, with Tuesday the last opportunity for traders to exit ahead. Of course, ICE Cotton will not trade Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, but will trade an abbreviated session on Friday.    

The U.S. dollar traded slightly higher Friday, as it remained on track for its largest weekly gain in a month. Investors continue to bet that the Federal Reserve's interest rate hiking path will keep true. Just Wednesday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard expressed hawkish comments indicating that even under a "generous" monetary policy, the Fed needs to keep raising rates as its tightening so far "had only limited effects on inflation."    

For the week, December cotton is down 3.04 cents, for the month it is up 13.16 cents, but for the year it is off some 3.04 cents.    

For Friday, December closed at 85.16 cents, down 1.88 cents, March 2023 finished at 83.78 cents, down 1.50 cents and July 2023 settled at 82.02 cents, 1.27 cents lower; estimated volume was 37,195 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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