Keith Brown DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst    

After a nervous start, the cotton market did finish higher Tuesday. However, traders are keeping a wary eye on the ongoing civil unrest occurring in China. However, there are several domestic reports, which may also influence the price of cotton. Initially, there will be Wednesday's Q3 GDP, followed by Thursday weekly export sales, culminating with Friday's jobs data.    

Also Tuesday afternoon, USDA will offer its weekly crop progress report. It normally issues that data on Mondays, but a technical glitch with the agency's computer system disrupted its timeliness.    

According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, a record number of holiday shoppers, some 196.7 million of them, were out and about from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday. The trade group did not estimate the total spending for the weekend event, but indicated sales for the holiday shopping season are on track to meet its forecast. Last year sales ranged between $942 to $960 billion. Interestingly, this year's increased spending came despite a near four-decade high inflation rate.     

For Tuesday, December closed at 81.60 cents, up 1.40 cents, March 2023 finished at 80.61 cents, up 1.66 cents and July 2023 settled at 79.35 cents, 1.64 cents higher; estimated volume was 16,766 contracts.    

Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com 

(c) Copyright 2022 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.