By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market settled mixed Wednesday, with December slightly lower, but the deferred contracts somewhat higher. However, there was a wide, 2-cent range for the December contract. Traders are trying to place Tuesday’s nine-year-high rally into some sort of market perspective. That is, the basic fundamentals of supply-demand are such the market could easily top or renew the upside.

The Federal Reserve released the minutes for its last meeting Wednesday. The Open Market Committee officials voted to keep short-term interest rates near zero. In its post-meeting statement, the committee said the economy had made “progress” toward the dual goals of sustainable inflation around 2% and full and inclusive employment, but nonetheless, the notes indicated the Fed would initiate tapering this year.

The next two meaningful reports for cotton will be Thursday’s weekly export sales from USDA, followed by the CFTC’s commitment of traders report on Friday. Last week’s sales were a stout 300,000 bales, while the last “head count” for speculators showed the managed-money funds being net long some 70,000 contracts.

For Wednesday, December settled at 94.83 cents, down 0.07 cent, March ended at 93.95 cents, up 0.22 cent and December 2022 ended at 84.07 cents, 0.15 cent higher; estimated volume was 29,575 contracts.