By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market ended sharply lower Monday as swelling omicron fears took their collective toll on markets. The Dow, gold, and crude oil all succumbed to sharply lower price levels. With such outside negativity, there was no way cotton could stand the outside pressure.

Tuesday will be the end of the data collection period for this week’s Commitments-of-Traders report. When that information is published, it will be interesting to see if any net long positions held by the managed-money funds have been jettisoned. At last count that group was 69,000 or so contracts net long.

Because of the Christmas holiday, this will be an abbreviated week of trading. The ICE Cotton will close Thursday afternoon and will reopen at 7:30 a.m. EST Monday morning. With each passing day, trading volume is likely to be reduced, meaning that certain price swings may be exaggerated up or down.

Monday, March cotton settled at 105.54, down 1.76 cents, July ended at 101.47, down 1.88 cents, and December ended at 89.57, 0.47 cent lower. Monday’s estimated volume was 22,379 contracts.