KARACHI, Oct 29: Trading on the cotton market on Tuesday was relatively slow as spinners and mills took a technical breather to have a look at their inventories before resuming fresh covering operations.

“After having purchased about 40,000 bales, notably from the Punjab ginners, spinners stayed on the sidelines most of the time apparently in a bid to keep prices within the current range”, some brokers said.

But some others claim there is no reservations on the part of spinners about the future price outlook and they continued to build-up long positions at the prevailing prices.

“A lot of business is being transacted, including some big lots, details of which are still to arrive here”, they said adding “major thrust is on the fine lots”.

There is a virtual scramble among the spinners to grab the floating stock of quality lots both from the upper Sindh and the southern Punjab ginneries and that factor is keeping prices fairly steady despite erratic fluctuations in phutti prices.

After having touched the recent high mark of Rs1,000 per 40-kg, phutti prices are fluctuating between Rs970 and Rs925 on the higher and lower sides since Monday.

Floor brokers said the future direction of the market will be guided by the size of phutti arrivals into the southern Punjab ginneries but one thing appears certain that rumours of a short crop may not be correct.

“And rates above Rs2,000 per maund during the first picking in the major cotton growing areas reflect that reports of a short crop could push lint prices further higher in the coming weeks”, they added.

It was in this background that official spot rates stayed firm around Rs2,100 per maund, although in physical trading most of the deals were done according to quality of lint in trade.

New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered a modest decline of 0.32 and 0.21 cents per lb at 46.31 and 48.40 cents for both the ruling December and the distant March settlements respectively owing to speculative selling.

Ready offtake was active as late on Tuesday evening about 4,000 bales changed hands as under:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,050, 500 bales, Setharja at Rs2,120, 500 bales, Hingorja at Rs2,125, 2,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs1,975, 200 bales, Nayabad at Rs1,975, 400 bales, Tando Adam at Rs1,975, and 500 bales, Mirpurkhas also at Rs1,975.