The U.S. dollar rallied to a two-year high Wednesday, eclipsing prices last seen in May of 2017. The driving force behind the dollar’s strength was the Trump Administration’s plans to place tighter restrictions on Iranian oil by rescinding wavers to certain countries. Such a move only heightens tensions in that part of the world, but it also could weaken the currencies and the economies of those friendly nations who had obtained said wavers. Interestingly, China was one of those other waver nations.

Spot May cotton did experience 114 notices on its first day of its delivery period. While the amount in and of itself was not overwhelmingly bearish, given the notion of strong demand the market would have preferred not to see any deliveries.

Thursday, USDA will issue its latest weekly sales and export report. Certainly, current sales have been more than sturdy as, even without China, business is closely shadowing USDA’s five-year average. All that to say, Thursday’s numbers need to be stout.

For Wednesday, July Cotton settled 77.12 cents, minus 0.80 cent, December closed at 76.06 cents down 0.79 cent and March finished at 76.48 cents, off 0.74 cent. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 26,200 contracts.