By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

After spending much of Thursday’s session trading negative, the cotton market still managed to close above the psychologically important 90-cent level. Wednesday, we reported that the market did make a new contract high of 91.00 cents, but today, amid poor exports-sales and month’s end squaring, some traders booked profits. Thus, a small corrective close occurred. Still, the trend of the market remains relentlessly bullish.

The U.S. dollar traded lower Thursday in the face of bearish comments from Fed Chairman Powell. Wednesday, Powell indicated that, although the Fed would maintain near-zero interest rates, the need to alter its tapering efforts was “a ways off,” his quote. That summation proved bearish to the greenback, which posted a new monthly July low Thursday.

The latest six- to 10-day forecast from the Climate Prediction Center indicates below-normal temperatures for West Texas and above-normal rainfall, while the eight- to 14-day outlook suggests below-normal temperatures, with normal rainfall.

As the market approaches Friday’s end-of-the-month session, December cotton is up 0.65 cent on the week, up 5.41 cents on the month and is up 16.61 cents for the year.

Thursday, December settled at 90.31 cents, down 0.21 cent, March ended at 89.92 cents, minus 0.16 cent and December 2022 ended at 81.16 cents, 0.42-cent lower; estimated volume was 17,854 contracts.