DTN Closing Cotton            12/30 13:29

   Cotton Sloshes Sideways 

   Between speculative short-covering and fixation buying by merchants, the 
cotton market posted a slow pre-New Year's Eve trade. 

Keith Brown
DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst

   Between speculative short-covering and fixation buying by merchants, the 
cotton market posted a slow pre-New Year's Eve trade. The market will trade a 
full session Wednesday and Friday, but, of course, be closed on New Year's Day.

   USDA will release catch-up export sales data Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. EST, and 
then again on Monday. Traders hope to see additional Chinese participation. The 
last report showed sales of 304,700 bales, the strongest since Nov. 6. 
Cumulative sales have reached just 55% of the USDA forecast versus a five-year 
average of 71% for this point in the marketing year.

   The CFTC will issue fresh Commitments of Traders information Wednesday, and 
then again on Monday. At last count, the managed-money funds were net=short 
some 55,000 contracts. For context, their record bearish position was 
81,000-plus contracts.

   The U.S. dollar was higher Tuesday ahead of the release of minutes from the 
Federal Reserve's December meeting. Investors hope to gauge the path of 
monetary policy. With that, year-end holidays have kept trading volume light, 
and analysts cautioned not to put too much weight on market moves over recent 
days. Nonetheless, the Greenback is on track for its worst performance since 
2017, losing some 10% of its value.

   For Tuesday, March 2026 went out at 64.32 cents, down 3 points; July was 
66.85 cents, minus 1 point; and December 2026, closed at 68.32 cents, up 12 
points. Tuesday's estimated volume was 37,264 contracts.

   Keith Brown can be reached at [email protected]




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