By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market affirmed its historical dollar closed Wednesday when the December market settled above $101. This market hasn’t been this high in 10 years and, from all appearances, it seems destined higher. Yet, with Thursday’s monthly and quarter end, volatility could run high and profit-taking could set in towards the weekend.

The market has been driven higher with a multiplicity of positive fundamentals, with late-season weather as the top influencer. India has supposedly suffered the ravages of Cyclone Gulab, while West Texas should see very heavy rainfall over the next five to seven days. Traders are concerned about quality and quantity problems.

Thursday, USDA will issue its weekly export sales. Last week saw net sales of 345,400 bales, which was higher than the average pace of 300,000-plus. China was the top buyer with 219,800 bales, followed by Turkey (52,700), Pakistan (36,200) and Vietnam (9,700).

Also Thursday, is the end of the month and quarter, so emotions could be running higher for some sort of correction. To that end, speculators are probably overloaded net long and could really want to lighten up, especially in the face of a government shutdown.

For Wednesday, December settled at 101.94 cents, up 1.91 cents, March ended at 100.74 cents, plus 2.04 cents and December 2022 ended at 85.59 cents, 0.09 cent higher; estimated volume was 62,682 contracts.