December 28, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 4, 1424

KARACHI, Dec 27: Cotton market finished the weekend session on a quieter note as spinners and mills remained conspicuous by their absence partly because of year-end considerations and partly to higher asking prices.

However, some brokerage houses reported stray lots did change hands between Rs3,200 to Rs3,250 per maund for the superior type and around Rs2,800 to Rs3,000 for the inferior ones.

But the market lacked any special feature as both ginners and spinners remained busy taking stock of their year-end inventories and an overview of their profit and loss balance sheets, brokers said.

Most of the leading spinners are awaiting the arrival figures of phutti for the fortnight ending Dec 31, which will give a fair idea of the total crop position to chalk out their future buying strategy basing on the supply position, they maintained.

“With New York cotton market closed because of Christmas holidays, ginners could precisely decide how to tailor their future price outlook in line with supply position in the backdrop of a lower crop ideas,” they said.

But one thing appears certain that the market trend will be fully known with the start of the new year trading as by that time both the buyers and the sellers would have to act according to their needs for the next quarter.

Ginners appear to be in a pretty comfortable position as unlike the previous seasons they did not indulge in hasty selling to meet their bank demands. Most of them are holding on to their unsold stocks hoping to sell them at the higher levels.

“But they ruled out the possibility of another price flare-up as witnessed last month when prices soared to an all-time high level of Rs3,600 per maund,” they said adding “larger import being made by the spinners could well prove a price stabilizing factors in the weeks to come.”

Meanwhile, exports of lint cotton by the private sector exporters during the current season, starting from Aug 1, stood at 0.122m bales, month-wise breakup in bales being as under: August 6,647, September 6,235, October 35,582 and November 37,524.

The figures show that export of lint is picking up for the last two months under a free trade policy and may rise further owing to attractive prices being offered by the importing countries.

Official spot rates were firmly held at the overnight levels but some of the lots that changed hands were done at the higher levels.

Ready business was light totalling about 5,000 bales including some big deals of fine types comprising both from the central Sindh and southern Punjab cotton belts.