KARACHI,April 18: Cotton market passed through a relatively quieter session on Friday as both leading ginners and spinners kept to the sidelines in a short session.
The slow activity in part was also attributed to closure of leading Punjab markets where traders and brokers observe Friday as holiday but do normal business on Sunday.
However, according to late Thursday night reports from some of the southern Punjab cotton centres said some of the spinners from the Punjab managed to lift modest quantities of lint for nearby delivery.
Prices at which the deals were finalized fluctuated between Rs2,500 on the lower side and Rs2,550 on the higher side depending on the quality of lint.
Floor brokers said although ginners are not worried over the attitude of spinners and mills as they hold manageable unsold stocks but their efforts to get higher prices around Rs2,700 per maund for contamination-free lint seem to have failed owing to reluctance of spinners to buy beyond Rs2,600, which is claimed to be in line with their export parity levels.
But some of the ginners holding stock of odd lots are trying to get out of the market and have lowered their asking prices as was reflected by the range of price at which ready deals are being finalized.
After having imported over half a million of lint cotton from the foreign markets spinners are in comfortable supply positions and could await the arrival of new crop as more consignments are claimed to be in the pipeline, market sources said.
That was perhaps why, despite a short crop, leaving a supply gap of over a million bales, there is no panic among the spinners and mills and leading among them seem to be guiding the market trend without any uneven price movements, they added.
“Spinners re-enter and withdraw from the market at will apparently in an effort to veto and speculatively increase prices,” they said adding “their manoeuvring has almost ensured for them supplies at a competitive rate.”
New York cotton futures on the other hand maintained their upward drive and rose further by 0.40 to 0.53 cents per lb at 58.43 and 60.55 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the distant July settlements.
Official spot rates did not show any change for the fourth session in a row as most of the deals are done in line with them.
Ready off-take was light totalling about 4,000 bales as under: 800 bales, Sanghar and Nawabshah at Rs2,530, 200 bales, Shahpur Chakkar at Rs2,500, 500 bales, Setharaja Rs2,5550, 1,000 bales, Chundko at Rs2,500 and 900 bales, Bahawalpur at Rs2,525.
