By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

The cotton market finished Friday’s session slightly higher, despite its wobbly action on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday, USDA issued less than robust export-sales data, which somewhat curbed bullish enthusiasm. However, bullish encouragement from a strong Dow Jones and rising Chicago grains helped cotton to ease over the positive finish line. To that end, the spot March contract was up roughly 2% for the week.

The U.S. Dollar Index was down Friday as the monthly jobs data fell way short of expectations. Non-farm jobs created in December were a mere 199,000 versus expectations of 400,000. The conventional thinking is a weaker economy may require the Fed to delay its plan to hike interest rates.

Thursday, weekly export sales showed net sales of 143,200 bales for the 2021-22 Season, down 26% from the previous week. Exports were at 104,900 round bales, down 35% from the previous week. Still, the demand for U.S. cotton is very robust, however the market is struggling with its ability to timely ship cotton.

Next week, USDA will issue new supply and demand numbers as well as quarterly grain stocks on Wednesday. In its December data, USDA slightly increased the U.S. crop by 80,000 bales to 18.28 million. However, domestic carryout was left unchanged at 3.40 million bales.

Friday, March cotton settled at 115,12 cents, up 0.40 cent, July ended at 110.28 cents, up 0.67 cent and December finished at 94.52 cents, 0.53 cent higher; estimated volume was 30,059 contracts.