By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market posted new life-of-contract highs Friday, with new crop December trading at the $1 mark. Outside markets were supportive as were this week’s export sales issued by USDA. Initially, the market was bearishly distracted by the rise in the U.S. dollar, but with a recovering a Dow Jones, cotton returned to express a positive delayed reaction to those strong export sales.

Friday afternoon the CFTC will issue its trader update via the commitment of traders report. Whatever numbers are revealed, one would have to think they are actually greater given cotton’s big price rise since Tuesday. Next week, China will enter its new year’s holiday, and those celebrations will overlap with its Olympics as well. Some traders expect a certain amount of business reductions during that time.

With month’s end on Monday, spot March cotton stands 3.01 cents up on the week, and 11.16 cents higher on the month and year. To that end, cotton futures rose more than 2% Friday, and are headed for their seventh consecutive weekly gain. It would be the longest winning streak since January 2020.

Friday, March cotton settled at 123.76 cents, up 2.13 cents, July ended at 117.87 cents, up 1.36 cents and December finished at 99.73 cents, 0.90 cent higher; estimated volume was 42,564 contracts.