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cotton

The Victoria's Secret chain has a secret, all right, and it's a dirty one. Its undies that are purported to be made with "fair trade" organic cotton actually utilize some unseemly labor practices in the early stages of the supply chain.
Friday's employment report has created an even hazier backdrop for stocks. Recent data showed an economy starting to cool, but with 244,000 jobs created in April, this expansion may have legs after all. But the economy's areas of support aren't what you'd have expected a few months ago.
Over the past year, the prices of many commodities have risen at record paces to record highs. But recently, those prices have begun to plunge, and consumers should begin to see the effects of those declines fairly soon, in the form of less-expensive groceries and clothing.
Among the questions investors now face: How much rally is left in cotton since skyrocketing 171% already in a year? Among the variables to consider are weather, demand and how much more land gets devoted to cotton. Analysts point to better and worse ways to play this commodity.
It's no surprise that consumer prices are rising -- the prices of commodities from corn to cotton to copper are near record levels, thanks to shrinking supplies and rising demand worldwide. The question is whether the Fed will raise rates to combat this price inflation -- and whether it should.
The dollar is looking mighty attractive, thanks to a reviving U.S. economy and eurozone woes, and it will only get stronger as traders who gambled that it would fall buy dollars to unwind their bad bets. Add in China's desperate need to get its overheated economy in check, and commodities prices look like they have nowhere to go but down.
Dry conditions may limit cotton production in the United States, the world's largest exporter of the crop, next season. Farmers will abandon more fields as dry weather compounds already below-normal moisture in growing areas from Texas to Alabama, John Flanagan, the president of Flanagan Trading...
Expect your T-shirts to get a little bit thinner next year -- and maybe a little more expensive. Apparel retailers are looking high and low for ways to keep from passing on too much of their own rising costs to consumers. The trick: Doing so without hurting quality.
China's bull run may be over as investors pulled money out of the market, forcing the Shanghai Composite down 1.9% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index down 2%. In Japan the Nikkei 225 Index was nearly flat.
Some of the best reads for investors from around the Web, including posts evaluating how consumers spend their money, whether Google could be considered a monopoly and the debate about the Fed's policy on quantitative easing.

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