KARACHI, Jan 7: Firm trend was witnessed on the cotton market on Wednesday as spinners were back in the rings and made extensive covering purchases irrespective of the asking prices.

Another 25,000 bales changed just at the heels of the overnight panic buying as mills and spinners are not inclined to take even a technical breather owing to higher world prices.

Ginners who had purchased phutti at double the official rate of Rs850 per 40 kg are happy over the developing situation on the cotton market for the third time during the last about two months, brokers said.

Prices have declined to as low as Rs2,800 and had risen to all-time peak level of Rs3,600 per maund and are again poised to set fresh new record owing to a short crop, they said.

"The five per cent decline in arrival figures of phutti instead of an expected modest increase seem to have sent shock waves among the spinners and the mills who are out to grab the floating stock at the prevailing prices", dealers said. "But ginners are not that fool and generally sell at their asking prices."

As a result, most of the fine lots were traded around Rs3,400 per maund, inferior ones between Rs3,100 to 3,350 for the southern Punjab lint. Floor brokers said spinners are now pretty sure that they have to line up fresh supplies to keep the wheels moving for the second half of the current year and they are out to cover their forward positions amid hopes that their foreign trading partners will share the extra cost of inputs.

Already, yarn prices on the local market had risen by Rs20 to Rs40 per kg for various counts but spinners have so far failed to pass on the extra burden on the importers, they said.

Official spot rates, which were lowered a day earlier were again revised upward by Rs50 per maund, although in the ready section most of the deals were done well above them.

New York cotton on the other hand showed fractional fall of 0.13 and 0.4 cents per lb at 75.67 and 76.83 cents per lb respectively on stray selling. Ready business was fairly brisk totalling about 25,000 bales, the following being some of the important deals:

SINDH VARIETY: 1,200 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,950 to Rs3,100, 1,500 bales, Khipro at Rs3,000 to Rs3,100, 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs3,000 to Rs3,050, and 3,000 bales, K-68, upper Sindh at Rs3,350.