By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market finished a bit higher Thursday as traders await Friday’s key reports. Those include USDA’s weekly export sales and Labor’s monthly jobs data. Both releases will carry direct and indirect impacts for cotton prices.

Current season sales stand at 100% of USDA’s target, and with the recent sales amounts, government tabulators may have to raise the exports category on the June crop report; last report saw 265,000 bales sold. Regarding the unemployment data, expectations are calling for 265,000 new non-farm jobs for May.

Also Friday, the CFTC will issue its Commitment of Traders report. Managed-money funds continue to hold a respectable net-long position. analysts hope to see a swelling of that stance.

Heading into Friday’s session, and after the first week of trading for the month of June, December cotton is up 1.68 cents for the week and month, and up 10.13 cents for the year.

Some in-depth weather for West Texas shows periodic rainfall over the next one to five days. Planting efforts should advance well, but temperatures will be lower than desired for early crop development. However, the period of June 10-16 looks to be drier and warmer.

Thursday, December cotton closed at 84.21 cents, up 0.44 cent, December settled 85.04 cents, up 0.38 cent and March 2022 ended 85.03 cents, up 0.04 cent; estimated volume was 34,059 contracts.