Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market was materially lower Monday amid a strong U.S. dollar, plus increased weekend COVID-19 cases in China. Over the weekend, a certain Federal Reserve governor indicated that the central bank would stay the course in hiking interest rates, despite an improved CPI report.    

This week, the U.S. financial market will see the PPI report Tuesday, retail sales on Wednesday, and then housing starts on Friday. Anyone, or all, could sink their outcomes in the pace of inflation.    

Also, there were rising cases of COVID infections reported in China this weekend, which may blunt her willingness to quickly reopen its economy. Just last week the government listed 20 key components for easing restrictions for all aspects of life, including travel, retail, schools and transportation.    

Monday, Biden and China's Xi met for private talks at the G-20 meeting in Bali. The hope of the event was to get communications going again between the two rival nations.    

Monday afternoon, USDA will release its crop harvest data. Some analysts are anticipating the 2022 gathering will have reached 65% complete. Also Monday, the CFTC will issue its holiday-delayed commitment of traders report. At last count, the managed-money funds were net long a mere 5,000 contracts. Since that time, open interest has declined for 255,000 contracts to 205,000.    

For Monday, December closed at 85.28 cents, down 2.92 cents, March 2023 finished at 83.62 cents, down 2.71 cents and July 2023 settled at 81.57 cents, 3.30 cents lower; estimated volume was 47,225 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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