October 15, 2003	Wednesday	Sha'aban 18, 1424

KARACHI, Oct 14: Cotton market on Tuesday remained in a bullish frame of mind as spinners, haunted by fears of a short crop, were not inclined to sit on the sidelines and again indulged in panic buying.

Later in the evening prices eased slightly from the late last evening and mid-session trading range of Rs3,100 to Rs3,200 per maund to Rs2,900 to Rs3,000 levels but spinners claim they are still much higher than their export parity levels.

“I don’t see any major change in the near-term price outlook,” says a ginner adding “the grower may not allow it fall from the current level unless he exhausts his entire stock of unsold phutti.”

He has almost regulated the release of phutti to the ginneries in a way to keep a judicious balance between the demand and the supply.

“The grower has always been at the receiving end but he outwitted both the ginner and the spinner during the current season after having taken refuge under the shelter of a short crop,” he adds.

There was a confusion on the market as rapid changes in the price outlook keep both ginners and spinners at their toes and they could not precisely decide how to react to changing cotton scenario, dealers said.

However, they have certainly curtailed their daily offtake hoping further decline in prices in the coming sessions, although chances of an immediate decline appears remote, they said.

There are no indications of big-lot business as both the leading spinners and their weaker links are not buying more than 200 bales for obvious reasons including hopes of balancing the expensive lint with the cheaper one if prices fall from the current all-time peak levels.

“Supply and demand factors appear to be setting the trend for the market to follow and they will remain dominating factors until the crop figure is not available,” says a leading broker.

He says all the sectors associated with the cotton economy have their own final crop figures and playing them according to their whims without any gain but rather are fuelling the current speculative run in prices.

According to market sources some of the spinners have already opened letters of credit for about 0.1m bales, mostly from the Central Asian producers between 68 and 72 cents per lb.

Official spot rates were raised by Rs75 to Rs3,100 per maund but New York cotton futures on the other hand fell 0.26 and 0.15 cents per lb at 71.28 and 73.71 cents per lb for both the maturing October and the forward December settlements respectively.

Ready business was large about 20,000 bales, mostly done between Rs2,900 and Rs3,000 per maund depending on the quality of lint and delivery period.