KARACHI, Sept 24: Cotton prices on Tuesday eased modestly as some of the leading ginners indulged in hasty selling in an uppishly leaned market for no apparent bearish reasons.

Most of the deals in physical trading reported in the ready section were done between Rs1,900 and Rs1,975, sharply lower than the Monday’s average buying price of Rs2,000, the highest being Rs2,035.

For the second session in a row, spinners and mills were not inclined to take even a technical breather and lifted all the lots offered for sale by both the Sindh and the Punjab ginners.

Unlike the previous sessions, the interesting feature was that the low micronaire factor seems to have lost its relevance as both the Sindh and Punjab types remained in strong demand and were mostly sold at par, brokers said.

“The speculation about the damage to quality of lint in the Punjab cotton belt is there but not to the extent being projected by some vested interests to keep its price low”, they added.

But fears about a short crop and pressure on future supplies is expected to dominate the trading in the coming sessions until the the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) releases the official arrival figures of phutti for the month of September early next month.

However, the general thinking both in the official and the private quarters is that the total size of the crop could be around the initial projected figure as the damage to standing crop in the Punjab is not that alarming.

“The prevailing unity among the growers, however, could provide them the needed leverage to tilt the balance of price in their favour after the phutti arrivals get normal in the southern Punjab cotton belt”, brokers fear.

While prices in the ready section eased depending on the quality in trade, there was no change in the official spot rates, which were held unchanged at Rs1,970 per maund without 15 per cent sales tax.

New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered fractional decline ranging from 0.15 and 0.37 cents per lb for both the ruling October and the distant December contracts at 41.80 and 43.73 cents per lb respectively on speculative selling.

Ready offtake was fairly brisk as till late in the evening another 8,000 bales changed hands, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 100 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs1,900, 100 bales, at Rs1,925, 200 bales at Rs1,940, 200 bales, Sultanabad at Rs1,920, 400 bales, at Rs1,925, 200 bales, Khipro at Rs1,960, 200 bales, at Rs1,965, 2,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs1,975 and 1,000 bales, Sanghar also at Rs1,975, 200 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,000 and 200 bales, Sakrand also at Rs2,000.