By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market finished higher Wednesday as outside market forces were markedly higher. To that end, the Chicago grains are nearing 10-year highs. Their upside potential is being fed by bullish South American weather and fears over Ukraine. All together those fundamentals spell inflation.

Oil prices reversed earlier losses Wednesday as news of Ukraine’s government was affected by a most likely Russian cyberattack. The beleaguered nation declared a state of emergency Wednesday, telling its citizens in Russia to leave, while the Russians evacuated its embassy in Kyiv. With that, the U.S. dollar is experiencing flight-to-quality buying.

In other news, weekly export sales are delayed until Friday, and March cotton continues to be involved in its delivery period. Coming into Wednesday morning’s session there were 237 contracts in March’s open interest, which was down 230 from Tuesday.

Wednesday, March cotton settled at 122.40 cents, up 1.29 cents, July ended at 118.41 cents, up 0.99 cent and December finished at 102.48 cents, 0.82 cent higher; estimated volume was 17,038 contracts.