By Todd Hultman, DTN Lead Analyst 

The cotton market nearly hit limit-up levels early Monday morning as a flurry of buyers chased the futures. Fears that the U.S. crop may come in smaller due to weather adversities, plus potential trouble with the Indian crop and outright technical buying sent prices to their highest levels in 10 years.

Monday afternoon USDA will issue its weekly crop condition/progress numbers. In its ratings, it is expected to show obvious yield setbacks caused by the prevailing cool and wet weather over the Delta and Southeast and possibly soon West Texas. Additionally, the report on the pace of the 2021 harvest. Last week the crop was 9% gathered.

This week marks the final week of the month and the quarter, thus some traders are expecting higher-than-normal volatility as positions are squared. Moreover, the Federal Government runs out of money on Thursday which might result in a shutdown. That action could impair USDA from issuing its normal marketing data.

For Monday, December settled at 98.05 cents, up 2.06 cents, March ended at 96.82 cents, up 2.25 cents and December 2022 ended at 84.46 cents, 0.88 cent higher; estimated volume was 72,836 contracts.