January 4, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 30, 1423

KARACHI, Jan 3: Steady conditions prevailed on the cotton market on Friday as conflicting reports about the size of the crop forced ginners and spinners to keep to the sidelines at least for the near-term.

Arrival figures of phutti for the fortnight ended Dec 31, 2002 are due during the next couple of sessions, which are expected to set the future trend of the market.

The spinners, therefore, slowed down their daily covering purchases awaiting the latest details about the size of the crop, although some of them are claimed to be far behind their target for the last month, dealers said.

For the fourth session in a row spinners were not that enthusiastic as they had been early last month when daily ready turnover figure averaged about 50,000 bales, they added.

The general perception is that the phutti arrival figures for the last fortnight are very crucial for the market direction as both higher and below market expectations could work on both sides of the price line.

But one thing appears certain that ginners may not opt for hasty selling even if the crop figures are higher than the private estimate, brokers said.

“Most of the ginners may not have strong holding capacity, they are pretty sure that imports at the current world rates are too expensive”, they said adding “they will try to hold on to their unsold stocks as long as prices did not hit their pre-determined levels”.

Spinners also are said to be planning their future line of action based on the latest arrival figures, as their chief worry could be to maintain prices at the current levels, they added.

Official spot rates, therefore, did not show any change and were firmly held at the last levels in line with the ready prices.

New York cotton futures on the other hand recovered for their recent lows and rose by 0.85 and 0.63 cents per lb for both the ruling March and distant May contracts at 52.01 and 55.38 cents per lb respectively.

Ready offtake was modest totalling about 15,000 bales as under:

SINDH VARIETY: 1,000 bales, K-68, upper Sindh at Rs2,175, 400 bales, Kumb at Rs2,140, 400 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,140, 500 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,150, 1,000 bales, Bucheri at Rs2,175.

PUNJAB TYPE: 5,000 bales, Bahawalpur, 1,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan, 1,000 bales, each Sadiqabad and Rajanpur and 600 bales, Khan Bella at a uniform rate of Rs2,175 conforming to the quality of lint in trade.