April 5, 2003	Saturday	Safar 2, 1424

KARACHI, April 4: The cotton market on Friday played terribly cool to the lower final crop figures as prices did not show much change, but rather some of the deals in the ready section were finalized at the lower levels.

But there was no immediate bullish impact on the market as under a planned strategy, spinners and mills most of the time kept to the sidelines apparently in a effort to contain any price flare-up at least for the short-term.

“In the final analysis supply and demand factors will prevail and spinners may remain on the receiving end until the new crop from the lower Sindh market arrives,” brokers fear.

“The supply gap is so big that it could not be bridged at competitive rates,” says a leading spinner, adding “the higher world prices at around 59 cents per lb had made it more uneconomic.”

There was a loud whispering in the market that some of the weaker mills may have to shut down their business if prices of end-products did not show sympathetic rise during the next couple of weeks.

According to the final crop figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), the total showed a fall of 4.33 per cent at 9.678m bales as compared to 10.116m bales during the comparable period last season.

Although spinners had so far purchased 8.864m bales as compared to 8.417m bales during the same period last year, they will need another 2m bales to see the current year ending Aug 31, through.

Some of the leading spinners and mills had already imported half a million bales of lint from the various countries during the last several months, but how to bridge the expanded gap between the supply and demand worries them.

“The meagre unsold stock of 0.676m bales could push prices to any highs during the next couple of sessions,” brokers fear, adding “the last figure of 1.396m bales during the same period was adequate enough to forestall any speculative price flare-up.”

The shape of the cotton market during the post-final crop figures sessions will tell who are the gainers and who are the losers in the risk trade of sliver fibre.

Official spot rates remained pegged at the overnight levels, while New York cotton futures suffered modest decline of 0.45 and 0.46 cents per lb at 57.50 and 58.86 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the forward July settlements, respectively.

Ready business was active as till late in the evening about 10,000 bales changed hands as under:

SINDH VARIETY: 2,000 bales, Khanpur Mehar at Rs2,550; 800 bales, Rohri at Rs2,550; and 1,200 bales, Gothki at Rs2,575.

PUNJAB TYPE: 1,000 bales, Bahawalpur at Rs2,625 and 1,000 bales at Rs2,650; 2,000 bales, Haroonabad at Rs2,600 and 1,600 bales at Rs2,680 on two-month credit.