17 April 2004	Saturday	26 Safar 1425

KARACHI, April 16: Cotton prices on Friday rose from the current lower levels as spinners and mills resumed their covering operations amid fears that ginners may held on to their positions in line with the recovery staged by the New York cotton futures.

New York cotton futures, which have fallen below the 60 cents per lb mark earlier this week, sending optimistic signals among the spinners again rose to pre-reaction levels on strong speculative support at the lower levels during the last two sessions.

The increase in world prices above the 60 cent benchmark has altogether changed the markets elsewhere, but its fallout on the local market was more than bullish, dealers said.

"Ginners, notably who still hold long unsold positions were worried over the falling world prices and were on the lookout for some supporting factors", they said "the rebound in New York futures reassured them that prices may not fall from the current levels". But there is loud whispering among the leading ginners to get out of the market as early week's sale could repeat itself any time, market sources said.

"Ginners are seized with the problem of selling their stocks at a competitive price in an uncertain world market, which has direct negative bearing on the local prices", they said adding "on the one hand they have to maintain the current prices level and sell them at their asking price on the other".

Spinners also followed the world market trend and resumed their covering operations as ginners did not lower their prices below their parity levels. Instances of stray panic selling were, however, not lacking as some of the ginners holding odd lots of low-mic lint sold them at as a low price as Rs1,925 and an exporter purchased them readily and sold to a spinner on profit.

New York cotton futures on Thursday posted fresh rise of 1.03 cents per lb for the ruling May contract at 61.40 cents per lb, while the forward July was quoted higher by 0.22 cents at 62.63 amid active trading. Local official spot rates on the other hand did show any change and were held at the overnight level.

Ready offtake was active as till late in the evening about 10,000 bales changed hands, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 2,600 bales, Mandodaro at Rs2,725, 400 bales, Bucheri at Rs2,900, 400 bales, Kot Laloo at Rs2,865, 200 bales, Kot Deji at Rs2,800, and 400 bales, Hyderabad at Rs2,800.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 400 bales, Haroonabad at Rs2,825, 400 bales, Liaquatpur at Rs2,900, 800 bales, Rajanpur at Rs2,865, 600 bales, Samundari at Rs2,900 and 1,000 bales, from various stations of Punjab at Rs1,925.