The cotton market overcame early end-of-the-month selling, plus saw delayed-response buying to Friday’s export sales, to finish somewhat higher Monday.

Friday’s exports did show a marketing-year-high shipment number which suggests, at the very least, the supply-chain is seeing some improvement. Moreover, combined seasonal sales tallied some 465,000 bales. As far as the early selling, that was attributed to fears of a global economic contraction due to the Ukraine-Russia War.

From Friday’s export sales data, we note that cumulative sales stand at 87% of the five-year average. Of course, it is also worth knowing that those huge sales were made prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. dollar was higher Monday, although it came off its early morning safe-haven buying. The Ukraine situation has placed additional pressure on the Federal Reserve to consider “not” raising interest rates at its March meeting. With the rise in crude oil and the collapse of the Russian ruble, the Fed may have to maintain its “accommodating monetary policy” a bit longer.

Monday, March cotton settled at 122.57 up 45, July ended at 115.82, plus 48 points, and December finished at 100.36, 3 points higher. Monday’s estimated volume was 20,371 contracts.