By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

After being pushed lower early Wednesday by the shrinking Chicago grains, the cotton market reversed its bearish course on the reality of Tropical Storm Elsa. The storm appears to be hitting farther north on the Florida peninsula than first thought, placing it much closer to the Georgia cotton crop. That crop, already inundated with rain and cloudy weather, may take a real setback with whatever rains Elsa dumps out.

Later Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its last meeting. It seems in a post-conference meeting, more than a few fed governors are now slanting towards tapering from the bond buying program. Currently, the fed buys at least $80 billion of U.S. debt and $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities every month in an effort to keep interest rates low.

Weekly-exports sales are delayed until Friday. The pushback was due to the observance of July Fourth holiday.

Thursday will be the final trading day for spot July cotton, the last 2020-21 old-crop contract. Next-in-line October will come on as front month.

Wednesday, July closed at 86.23 cents, up 0.25 cent, December settled 87.63 cents, plus 0.23 cent and March 2022 ended at 87.41 cents, 0.19 cent higher; estimated volume was 18,574 contracts.