By Keith Brown, DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst 

After tanking in its early trade, the cotton market managed to mitigate a fair portion of its losses. However, at Wednesday’s close of trading both old- and new-crop seasons were substantially lower. However, still several “polled” analysts continue to express their beliefs that seasonal highs have yet to be scored in the grains and cotton.

The Federal Reserve Wednesday afternoon its intentions of maintaining its easy-money policy, even though the U.S. economy is accelerating. As expected, the U.S. central bank decided to keep short-term interest rates anchored near zero as it buys at least $120 billion of bonds each month. The policy is a two-pronged effort to support an economy, and to support the housing sector. Currently, 30-year mortgages still go for around 3%.

Thursday morning USDA will publish its weekly export sales, and even though the current sales pace is dynamic, stronger numbers are needed. Last week, combining both crop years, total sales were 145,000 bales with China as the top buyer.

May Cotton closed at 88.74 cents, down 1.33 cents, July settled at 89.52 cents, down 1.90 cents and December ended at 86.07 cents, down 1.13 cents; estimated volume was 21,622 contracts.