KARACHI, Nov 13: Trading on the cotton market remained at a standstill for the second session in a row as ginners were not inclined to sell at the falling prices.

During the last two sessions, prices have declined by Rs200 per maund from the recent highs of Rs3,400, forcing ginners to take a defensive posture to keep prices within their parity levels.

But the recent persistent decline in the New York cotton futures, notably limit-loss on Wednesday has sent shock waves among the ginners who have been entertaining higher prices ideas, dealers said.

The other disturbing factor was steady arrivals of phutti into the ginneries and the price fixation problems. Until prices of lint stabilizes, they cannot precisely decide at which rate to buy phutti, they said.

“The local market is literally following the price trend on the New York Cotton Exchange,” analysts said. “If prices fall there so will do the local ones and if they rise, they will rise here too in sympathy.”

They said world prices are generally guided by the supply and demand factors, while here some speculative forces also enter the cotton trade and try to manipulate prices in their favour.

No one now possibly could deny the fact that the local crop is far below the mill demand, which on monthly average basis now stands at 0.950m bales, which roughly come to 12m bales.

The local production is billed between 9.5 and 10m bales, the wide gap between the supply and demand is expected to cause a fresh price flare-up during the next couple of weeks.

“Both ginners and spinners now seem to have taken positions and are awaiting who take a first blinking and is dubbed as the losers,” one broker jokingly said pointing to a status quo on the ready front for the last two sessions.

Stray business is taking place but both the buyers and the sellers are not inclined to release the details of their deals, brokers said.

Official spot rates were marked down by Rs100 per maund after several sessions in line with world prices but in the ready section spinners are buyers at Rs3,200 per maund for the Punjab lint and Rs2,900 to Rs3,000 for the Sindh variety.

New York cotton futures on Wednesday were marked down by limit-losses of 2.89 and 2.04 cents per lb for both the ruling December and the forward March settlements at 73.06 and 76.98 cents per lb respectively.