By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market finished higher Thursday as traders eyed a Gulf disturbance on the National Hurricane Center’s website. Early tracking has the weather heading towards the Mexico-Texas Border, making the Valley crop susceptible to trouble. In addition, the S&P posted all-time highs Thursday, which lent some peripheral support to cotton.

Friday, the jobs data will be out in the morning. Expectations called for some 750,000 new non-farm jobs for August; the August number was 943,000. Another strong number Friday will likely give license for the Federal Reserve to initiate its tapering program. Ultimately, the Fed’s withdrawal of stimulus may lead to higher interest rates, and thus drive the U.S. dollar higher.

Thursday’s weekly export-sales data was underwhelming. For the past three weeks combined, seasonal sales have stopped some 300,000 bales, but Thursday’s number was about half that amount. Cumulative sales for 2021-22 have reached just 39% of USDA’s forecast for the marketing year versus a five-year average of 47%.

Heading into the Labor Day weekend, December cotton is down 1.09 cents on the week, but up 0.76 cent on the month and up 19.59 cents on the year. For Thursday, December settled at 93.29 cents, up 0.99 cent, March ended at 92.64 cents, up 0.98 cent and December 2022 ended at 83.98 cents, 0.56 cent higher; estimated volume was 22,053 contracts.