KARACHI, Nov 7: Cotton market on Thursday maintained firm trend as leading spinners remained active buyers at the current levels but ginners were said to be a bit reluctant to opt for panic selling.

Owing to the advent of the holy month of Ramazan, physical activity was relatively slow. Brokers, however, think it will be normal during the next couple of days after buyers and sellers adjust themselves to the new Ramazan timings.

They said normally, bulk of the physical business in major cotton areas including the southern Punjab is done after Iftar, details of which start reaching to local brokers late in the evening.

As a result, it is pretty difficult to forecast about the price trend as it is mostly dependent on supply and demand factors but one thing is clear that leading spinner groups are active now and building up long positions against their forward sales of cotton yarn.

Unlike the previous sessions when spinners chased prices as higher as Rs2,175 per maund, they are now seeking fresh supplies below Rs2,100 per maund apparently to meet their parity demands.

But ginners appear to be in no mood to oblige any offers below Rs2,100 as they too have to operate according to their parity levels of phutti, whose average price per maund is calculated above Rs900.

According to some spinners cotton yarn prices on the world markets have shown an upward movement during the recent weeks owing to corresponding increase in cotton rates, it is not fully reflected in Pakistani cotton yarn.

Moreover, the local yarn becomes more expensive after taking into account higher local lint rates and other overheads including power and gas, some spinners claim.

“Spinners are caught between the two equally negative options”, market sources said adding “the higher lint prices render their textile end-products uncompetitive on the world markets after adding other overheads”.

Leading floor brokers don’t see any softening in lint prices at least for the near-term as leading spinners who have secured foreign markets in their fold continue to make

heavy covering purchases irrespective of the higher asking prices.

And that put their smaller partners in an disadvantageous position as most of them have to operate on the local markets and the end-product users are not fools, they added.

For the second day in a row, the official spot rates were further raised by another Rs25 at Rs2,100, although in the ready section ginners were not inclined to sell below Rs2.125 per maund.

New York cotton futures staged a partial recovery on speculative buying and rose by 0.26 and 0.70 cents at 47.69 and 49.64 cents per lb for both the ruling December and the forward March settlements respectively.

Ready business till 4 pm was light as details of the deals finalized in the upper Sindh and the Punjab cotton belts did not reach here.

However, 1,000 bales of K-68 from upper Sindh ginneries changed hands at Rs2,150. The following deals were also reported in Punjab type as under: 500 bales, D.G.Khan at Rs2,125, 500 bales, Vehari at Rs2,100, 1,000 bales, Haroonabad at Rs2,100 to 2,125 and 200 bales, Gojra at Rs2,075.