Welcome to Markets Desk, here's where things stand heading into the close.
Cotton futures finished sharply higher Thursday, up eighty-one to one hundred thirty-nine points on the session. A weaker dollar index, off nearly a full point, provided the tailwind, while export sales data showed just under thirty thousand running bales of new crop cotton sold for the twenty twenty-six marketing year, lending modest fundamental support to the rally.
Shifting to the livestock pits, live cattle extended their recent bounce with gains of a dollar forty-two to three forty-seven across the board. USDA confirmed cash trade at two thirty-two to two thirty-three, though the Fed Cattle Exchange online auction drew no sales on over a thousand head offered, with bids stalling at two twenty-eight, suggesting packers remain disciplined even as futures push higher.
On the technology front, Apple chief executive Tim Cook is framing the company's hybrid artificial intelligence approach as, in his words, a competitive weapon. With the new Siri rollout approaching, Cook confirmed Apple will monetize AI features through iCloud subscriptions, a strategy that positions the company to capture recurring revenue rather than compete purely on hardware cycles.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
