By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst

The cotton market was sharply lower Friday as speculators exited their positions ahead of this weekend. The ebb and flow of the Ukrainian war is turning even more scary with the Russians attacking a nuclear power plant Thursday night. Unfortunately, the market has sloughed off Thursday’s superior sales and shipments, as well as Friday’s stunning jobs report.

Friday afternoon, the CFTC will update its trader status. It will be interesting to see if the managed-money funds have drastically reduced their net long position.

Next week, March cotton will expire on Wednesday. Also, USDA will issue its monthly supply-demand report on that day. Then, on Thursday, USDA will publish its weekly export sales.

For the week, May cotton is down 2.21 cents on the week, but remains up 5.95 cents on the year.

Friday, May cotton settled at 116.42 cents, down 3.38 cents, July ended at 113.11 cents, down 2.75 cents and December finished at 100.65 cents, down 0.93 cent; estimated volume was 27,781 contracts.