24 November 2004	Wednesday	11 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Nov 23: Cotton prices on Tuesday remained stable around the previous levels as spinners and mills continued to cover their forward positions against foreign sales of yarn and value added textiles.

Unlike the previous sessions, however, instances of big-lot business was not wanting as some leading mills tried to grab floating stock of fine lots from the southern Punjab ginneries, brokers said. But ginners as was speculated did not increase their asking prices and in most of the cases obliged both the spinners and the mills. Most of the lots finalized comprised 1,000 to 4,000 bales.

"Strong presence of the TCP in the market seems to have sent shock waves among the textile sector, which in unison decided to cover forward positions before it was too late", analysts said.

"Price war between the mills and the TCP has just begun", they said "both are trying to corner the fine lots at the current rates but ginners failed to cash in on the prevailing tussle between the active participants and are selling their stocks mostly at the offered prices", some others said.

Higher crop ideas seem to be the chief worry of both the growers and the ginners and both are not inclined to hold long unsold positions fearing decline in prices, market sources said adding their fading holding capacity is ensuring a fair price to the spinners and mills, they said.

The other destabilizing factor appears to be reports of bumper crops in the major producing countries including India, 13 per cent, US 17 per cent and China 15 per cent. The steep increase in phutti arrivals each fortnight also reflect that Pakistan is also on the threshold of a big crop.

Both the ginners and the growers are, therefore, not inclined to take even a calculated risk and are operating mostly on daily basis. It was perhaps in this background that there was no change in the official spot rates despite modest increase in the New York cotton futures.

While the ruling December contracts was quoted higher by 0.95 cents at 48.78, the forward March rose by 0.71 cents at 43.99 cents per lb on speculative support. Ready off-take was active totalling about 30,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales each Mirpurkhas and Sanghar at Rs1,800 to Rs1,825, 2,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs1,975.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 4,000 bales, Bahawalpur at Rs1,980 to Rs2,000, 2,000 bales, each Rahimyar Khan and Sadiqabad, 1,000 bales each Multan and Alipur at Rs1,975 to Rs2,000, 2,000 bales, Hasilpur at Rs1,975 to Rs1,980, 1,000 bales, Jalalpur at Rs1,980 to Rs2,000, 1,000 bales, Noorpur at Rs1,990, 1,000 bales, Rajanpur at Rs1,995 and 1,000 bales, Lodhran at Rs1,990 to Rs2,000.