The cotton market was sharply higher Wednesday as trade talk euphoria ruled the day. The current trade talks ended Wednesday with three days of talks instead of the previously agreed upon two-day meetings. Now, it was announced a Chinese trade delegation will be coming to Washington on January 22, to hopeful hammer out even more details.

Additionally, there will be renewed pressure on the politicians to end the government shutdown. Supposedly this Friday, 800,000 federal employees, ranging for TSA to USDA, will miss their first pay period. Thus, the inconvenience to the American public will soon swell to levels which the hue and cry will be loud.

To that end, the cotton industry has already been inconvenience in that no market data is flowing from USDA. The market will have missed three weeks of weekly sales and exports, and the all-important monthly supply-demand report is scheduled to be delayed. At some point in the future, when this pent-up data is finally made public, it most likely will cause a knee-jerk reaction in the market.

Wednesday afternoon the Federal Reserve released its minutes of its last meeting and the tone was one of deliberate patience regarding future rate hikes. The minutes pointed out that, with muted inflation, the Fed does not have to follow a preset course to raising interest rates. When the news was out, the Dow rallied, while the U.S. dollar declined.

March cotton settled at 73.13 cents, up 1.46 cents, July was at 75.66 cents, up 1.26 cents and December was at 74.19 cents, up 0.96 cent. Wednesday’s estimated volume was 35,900 contracts traded.