November 9, 2001	Friday	Shaba’an 22, 1422

KARACHI, Nov 8: Panic mill buying on the cotton market continued for the second session in a row, but ginners were a bit reluctant to go all out for unloading their stocks and oblige them.

According to brokers some of the leading spinner groups were buyers around Rs.2,025.00 per maund but there were no matching selling offers from any of the ginners.

“Prices are expected to stabilize well above the Rs.2,000.00 per maund level not in very distant future as fears about the damage to standing crop in the Punjab will continue to haunt spinners”, fears a leading cotton broker.

Instead of going all out for the floating stock, spinners and mills behave orderly as higher lint prices will push prices of end-products higher, making export expensive, he says, adding “exports are already being hit by the continued appreciation of the rupee against the dollar”.

Most of the ginners entertain higher price ideas as reports about a short crop is still considered a dominant factor as far as the price mechanism is concerned.

However, spinners again dominated the trading scene, relegating the TCP into the secondary position, their chief worry appears to be an imminent price flare-up, dealers said.

They said the current mill buying flurry was largely based on their own crop estimate but others, who were associated with the cotton trade, claim the crop might be short but not to the extent being speculated by some quarters.

Cotton analysts said the fears of short crop had also gripped the foreign markets, notably the New York cotton futures, which soared by 1.42 and 1.31 cents per lb to 32.23 and 33.95 cents per lb for both the maturing December and the distant March settlements.

“Being one of the major cotton producers in the world, crop figures generally influence price trend elsewhere and the current price flare-up in New York cotton futures is attributed to local short crop”, they added.

Official spot rates were quoted higher by Rs.25.00 to 1,900.00 per maund but most of the deals in the Punjab variety were done around and above Rs.2,000.00 depending on quality.

Ready offtake was light as ginners were not inclined to sell below Rs.2,000.00 per maund and as a result, only 4,000 bales from various Punjab ginneries changed hands.