November 16, 2001	Friday	Shaba'an 29, 1422

KARACHI, Nov 15: Despite tight and restricted selling from ginners the local cotton market remained bullish where prices managed to touch season’s highest mark at Rs2,100 for quality premium.

The overnight heavy selling to a great extent subsided owing to holding back of stocks by ginners who after making good profits during last couple of sessions now seems to be in no hurry to part away from their stocks.

However, presence of leading groups in the ring looking for quality cotton helped to maintain bullish outlook despite the fact that ginners were not ‘willing’ sellers.

There is a run for quality cotton from these groups who normally pile up their stocks for entire season during the first three months of each cotton season.

The growers who till now managed to sold around 4.5 million bales also seem to be holding back their stocks particularly when the prices have moved up during the past one week or so.

There is general tendency to hold back stocks, which kept the business activity on Thursday tight and restricted but still this did not stop prices from moving higher, floor broker said.

The tough competition between leading textile groups to get hold of each lot offered for sale resulted in fresh price flare-up and end in a single day’s record price rise of Rs100.

The fast recovery in New York cotton market also helped local market maintain bullish trend. After touching rock bottom at 28.50 cents per lb in the post-Sept 11 trading, the New York market has recovered to 35.50 cents per lb.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) also revised its spot rates upward indicating that the market is bound to stay bullish for the next couple of days.

However, business activity on ready counter remained moderate where a total of 7,100 bales reported to have changed hands. 2,000 bales from station Sadiqabad were done at Rs2,100, 2000 bales from Rahimyar Khan at Rs2100, 2000 bales from Khanpur in the range of Rs2,025 to Rs2,050, 600 bales from Bahawalpur at Rs1,900 and 500 bales from Suja’abad done at Rs2,025.