By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market closed sharply higher Tuesday, as traders are awaiting Thursday’s WASDE, while also watching the tropical event down in the Gulf of Mexico. For the report, traders are anticipating a higher yielding crop from USDA. Texas is enjoying one of its highest good-to-excellent ratings in years. In fact, the nation’s crop is rated 18% above the ten-year average. Global exports are expected to slightly rise.

The market is also awaiting Thursday’s weekly export sales. Although new crop sales are running below last year’s pace, China and Vietnam did emerge as the lead buyers.

The last CFTC report showed managed-money funds as having increased their net long holdings. Given that Tuesday’s session will be included in this Friday’s commitment-of-traders information, we suspect certain speculators have increased their bullish holding all the more.

The U.S. dollar ended higher Tuesday, and is close to hurdling its March high of 93.43 cents. It seems odd that the greenback would be higher, given Congress passed its trillion-dollar infrastructure legislation. Some economists believe such unrestricted and pork spending is highly inflationary.

Tuesday, December settled 92.32 cents, up 1.42 cents, March ended at 91.79 cents, plus 1.25 cents and December 2022 ended at 82.46 cents, 0.62 cent higher; estimated volume was 29,086 contracts.