By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market was lower Thursday despite seeing decent export sales and a higher CPI Thursday morning. Thursday’s weekly sales actually exceeded last week’s tally, and China was the top buyer. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported Thursday that, month-over-month and year-over-year, inflation pressures were increasing.

However, those reports could not stir cotton northward. Of course, dominating all news is the Ukrainian-Russian War, which currently shows no end in sight.

Friday afternoon the CFTC will issue its commitment of traders data. While managed-money funds have been net long for months on end, one wonders how long will they maintain that stance. To that end, it has been rumored that some funds have sold cotton positions to raise money to cover margin calls over in the energies.

Crude Oil closed lower again Thursday as prices seem to be cooling off. Thursday’s wild gyrations were the result of the failed Ukraine-Russia peace talks. As of this writing, there are no talks scheduled this weekend. Thus far, crude has posted a Monday high of $130.50 and a Wednesday low of $103.63. It is likely that Friday’s trade will be “violent and unforgiving” for traders.

Heading into Friday’s session, May cotton is up 0.44 cent on the week, off 2.79 cents on the month, but is 6.38 cents higher on the year.

Thursday, May cotton settled at 116.86 cents, down 0.61 cent, July ended at 113.03 cents, down 0.18 cent and December finished at 101.44 cents, down 0.25 cent; estimated volume was 22,143 contracts.