Cotton kicking off Friday with some solid gains, up 15 to 20 points to start the day. Crude oil pushing higher again at plus $5.32 is definitely helping the move, which is typical for how these commodities tend to move together.

Looking back at the export data from this week, there's some interesting movement in US cotton prices. USDA showed 150,362 bales of old crop cotton moved in the week ending 2/26, down pretty significantly from the week before. Vietnam grabbed the bulk of it at 50,800 bales, with Pakistan taking another 27,900. New crop sales added another 54,636 bales on top of that. The actual export shipments though were more impressive - 282,155 bales went out, which was nearly 50% higher than the previous week and marked a marketing year high.

Futures wrapped Thursday mixed, with most contracts finishing down 18 to 4 points, though the March contract jumped 87 points before expiring. Crude was up $4.23 to close around $78.89, and the dollar index ticked up $0.30 to $99.03. ICE certified stocks stayed flat at 129,302 bales as of March 3.

On the contract side, March cotton closed at 63.03 up 87 points, May finished at 64.04 down 12 points but currently up 18, and July at 66 down 10 but now up 15 this morning. The Cotlook A Index dropped 45 points to 74.50 cents, while the Adjusted World Price got trimmed 40 points to 51.44 cents. Spot market saw 3,625 bales trade at an average of 61.37 cents per pound.

So US cotton prices are showing some resilience here with the crude oil support kicking in. The export numbers suggest decent demand underneath, even if the old crop sales came in lighter than expected. Worth keeping an eye on how this momentum holds through the session.