By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

After participating in Wednesday’s commodities rally, the cotton market reversed course Thursday to settle sharply lower. Two nagging negatives perhaps undermining the market’s bullish trend are the unfolding 2021 harvest and the inability to adequately ship cotton.

To that end, on Monday, USDA will update its harvest progress, which is likely to be at 40% or so. To the former point, the global shipping crisis is nearly bringing the movement of goods to something of a standstill. Such was evidenced by Thursday’s slow exports numbers.

Friday, the CFTC will update the trading status and positions of the market’s various participants. The most watched category is the managed-money funds. That group has essentially been net long for some 16 months, and at times, heavily so.

To reiterate, USDA will report on the harvest next week, and to that end the current six- to 10-day outlook indicates above-normal temperatures, but above-normal rainfall for the Delta and the Southeast, while West Texas will see above-normal temperatures and below normal rainfall. Currently, many southern growers are doing double-duty in that they are not only deep into the peanut harvest and are now just initiating the gathering of cotton.

For Thursday, December settled at 106.14 cents, down 4.59 cents, March ended at 104.15 cents, down 4.48 cents and December 2022 ended at 89.07 cents, 1.43 cents lower; estimated volume was 35,136 contracts.