Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market traded unchanged several times Thursday as traders lacked any sort of serious price conviction. Weekly export sales were somewhat weaker, but Thursday morning's CPI number (see below) was responsible for a sharply higher Dow Jones and a sharply lower U.S. dollar. Nonetheless, the cotton market made little effort to trade one way or the other.    

Hurricane Nicole has been downgraded to tropical storm status and is now unfolding across South Georgia. We estimate some 45% of the crop is exposed to some sort of damage.    

Thursday's CPI showed an inflation pace of 8.2% versus last month 8.5%. In October, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 0.4%, seasonally adjusted, and rose 7.7% over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.3% in October (SA); up 6.3%over the year.    

Spot December's option expires tomorrow at the close of Friday's session.    

Heading into Friday's session, we note that spot December cotton is off 0.55 cent on the week, up 14.38 cents on the month and down 6.27 cents for the year.    

For Thursday, December closed at 86.38 cents, down 0.12 cent, March 2023 finished at 84.56 cents, down 0.17 cent and July 2023 settled at 83.34 cents, 0.39 cent higher; estimated volume was 49,824 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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