DTN Closing Cotton            09/16 14:11

   Cotton Lower Thursday on Impending Harvest

   The cotton market ended lower Thursday as traders are beginning to look 
ahead to a huge crop.

Keith Brown
DTN Contributing Cotton Analyst

   The cotton market ended lower Thursday as traders are beginning to look 
ahead to a huge crop. However, adverse weather across the south from Hurricane 
Nicholas, among other weather events, is disrupting the development of that 
crop. On the other hand, the West Texas crop is enjoying hot and dry 
conditions, but to some degree we now hear there is too much of that. At any 
rate, the majority of the U.S. 2021 crop is termed a late crop, making it more 
susceptible to season-ending troubles.  

   Friday afternoon, the CFTC will update the traders as to who stands where, 
and by how much. At last count, the tabulators indicated the managed-money 
funds are net-long some 89,000-plus contracts, rivaling their top long position 
of 108,000 in June of 2018.

   Thursday's export sales pushed the market closer to its average pace of 
300,000 weekly sales. That is, five out of the last six weeks sales have 
averaged some 300,000 bales, but then two weeks ago sales fell to 125,000. 
However, that was followed by last week's huge 472,000 bale sale. 
Unfortunately, Thursday's number of 284,000, although it was slightly off-key, 
it carried the silver lining that China was the top buyer for the past weeks. 
It bought 261,000 bales last week and was in for 184,000 bales.

   Most traders continue to fret over the Federal Reserve's meeting next week. 
Supposedly, the Fed will announce a policy of limited tapering, which some 
believe is the initiation of rising interest rates.

   For Thursday, December settled at 92.51 cents, down 0.86 cent, March ended 
at 91.80 cents, down 0.82 cent and December 2022 ended at 82.25 cents, 0.76 
cent lower; estimated volume was 20,685 contracts.

   Keith Brown can be reached at commodityconsults@gmail.com or by calling 
(229) 890-7780.




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