By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market touched limit up for a moment Thursday as frenzied traders bought into the break. Most likely they were encouraged by alleged overnight Chinese buying and the resilient technical trend. Traders are anticipating Friday’s delayed weekly export sales for confirmation that China remains a devout buyer of U.S. cotton.

Also on Friday, the CFTC will issue its commitment of traders review. For months on end, the managed-money funds have been tenacious buyers of the ICE Futures. At last count, they had swelled their long position to 94,000-plus contracts.

In conversing with growers across the Belt, it is very evident the 2021 crop is very late in maturing. That means any sort of unexpected late season weather event, such as a hurricane or a freeze, would dramatically change the production picture. We are told that South Georgia producers may not full-scale defoliate their crops until the second week of November.

Thursday’s energy inventories from the DOE did show a bigger build than was anticipated. At that moment, crude oil prices slipped to slightly negative on the day. However, the oil market rallied back as top oil producer Saudi Arabia dismissed calls for additional OPEC+ supply. With domestic gasoline prices at near seven-years highs, the Biden administration has been calling on OPEC and U.S. refiners to “do something about the high prices.”

For Thursday, December settled at 107.10 cents, up 3.24 cents, March ended at 104.95 cents, up 3.11 cents December 2022 ended at 89.68 cents, 1.17 cents higher; estimated volume was 38,054 contracts.