Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

The cotton market ended sharply lower Friday, amid end-of-the month technical selling and the possibility of a hint of rain for West Texas.    

Friday's session saw new life-of-contract highs posted for cotton, but then speculative selling reversed the bullish course, resulting in a wide daily range trend and a lower settlement. Traders were also anticipating some rain for the parched fields of West Texas. Lubbock's rain chances presently stand at 70% for Sunday, then diminish till Wednesday when, odds are 65% for rain. Coverage of course cannot be determined.    

Friday afternoon, the CFTC will update the status of various traders' categories. The managed-money funds are a closely watched group. At last count (Tuesday), the funds were 73,000 contracts net long.    

May cotton will continue its delivery process into next week, but it does expire Friday, May 6. Thus far, there have been no deliveries against the contract.    

This Monday, USDA will issue its weekly planting progress report. Last week the 2022 crop was 12% planted versus the five-year average of 11% complete.    

For the week, July cotton is up 10.12 cents, for the month, up 13.56 cents and for the year is up 37.75 cents.    Friday, May cotton settled at 152.33 cents, down 0.75 cent, July closed at 145.63 cents, down 2.05 cents and December finished at 122.07 cents, 2.93 cents lower; estimated volume was 37,057 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

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