29 April 2004	Thursday	08 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, April 28: Physical activity on the cotton market on Wednesday shrank as ginners further raised their asking prices taking a bullish cue from the New York cotton futures.

Official rate committee, therefore, revised upward spot rates by Rs25 per muand at Rs2,875 as some of the fine lots on Tuesday were traded as higher as Rs3,025. "The snap rebound in lint prices worried spinners and mills as most of them were rendered uncompetitive on the world markets just in one go," says a spinner.

"We have to work in line with the export parity levels of our immediate competitors on the textile markets and any blinking could undo the entire fabric." Unlike the previous couple of sessions, spinners and mills, therefore, did not resume their covering operations at the higher asking prices and most of the time stayed on the sidelines.

There were fears among the spinners that some of the ginners still holding long and large unsold stocks of lint may hold them for another couple of weeks to push prices further higher.

"There is a loud whispering in the market that ginners are again eyeing the pre-reaction level of well over Rs3,000 per maund before the arrival of new crop and fresh imports," says a leading broker commenting on the price flare-up during the last couple of sessions.

Higher New York cotton futures and a short crop of possibly below 10m bales will continue to haunt spinners and mills and in the process, weaker among them could opt for panic buying and the consequent fresh increase in prices, he says.

But some others say the final crop figures are due next week and that will give a fair idea of supply and its likely impact on the prices in the coming weeks. New York cotton futures on Tuesday finished with a fresh rise of 0.67 and 0.46 cents per lb at 64.85 and 62.63 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the distant July settlements respectively.

Meanwhile, there was a relative quiet on the export and import front as there was no change in the previous figures, which stood at 0.178m bales and 0.970m bales respectively.

Ready business was light as till late in the evening about 5,000 bales changed hands, the following being some of the deals: 2,000 bales, Burewala Rs3,000 to Rs3,025, 200 bales, Kabirwala at Rs3,025, 240 bales, inferior type, Sadiqabad at Rs2,400 and 400 bales, Dharki at Rs2,375.