Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

After falling a 1-cent plus in early dealings, the cotton market recovered to settle fractionally lower for the session. A weaker U.S. dollar and a higher Dow Jones helped in that situation. Also ,after last week's strong export sales, hopes are gathering among traders that future foreign demand will improve.    

Noting the marketing-year high export sales of last week, cumulative sales for 2022-23 have reached 10.358 million bales, down from 12.582 million a year ago, and are the lowest since the 2015-16 season. In percentages, sales have reached 92% of the USDA forecast for the marketing year versus a five-year average of 89%. The largest buyer this week was Vietnam at    131,204 bales, followed by Pakistan at 95,629, Turkey at 86,152 and China at 46,241 bales.     

Apparently, the CFTC's Commitments of Traders report will be issued in "dribbles" The initial release indicated that managed-money traders bought an additional 1,100 contracts, increasing their net long position to 8,223 contracts. The full amount of affected data may not be known till mid-March.    

Monday, May 2023 finished at 84.80 cents, down 0.10 cent, July settled at 85.07, off 0.01 cent and December 2023, ended at 84.26 cents, down 0.06 cent; estimated volume was 23,623 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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