20 January 2005	Thursday	09 Zilhaj 1425

KARACHI, Jan 19: Physical activity on the cotton market on Wednesday was light as spinners and mills kept to the sidelines most of the time owing to delivery problems.

Cotton analysts said future price outlook appears to be a bit bullish in the backdrop of lower crop ideas originally estimated around 14.6m bales by the official monitoring committee.

The latest arrival figures of phutti did not touch the new peak level of 14m bales as the pace of arrivals has shown a considerable slowdown, falling to about a half of the previous fortnightly total, they said.

Ginners, therefore, raised their asking prices by over Rs50 per maund anticipating mills were still to go a long way to cover their seasonal demand of about 13m bales against which they have so far purchased about 11m bales, they added.

Stray lots, however, changed hands on ready basis as some of the spinners managed to arrange transport though at a higher fares to supplement their stock position in view of the eid holidays. But as a whole pre-eid holiday mood prevailed as being the last session of the current week, buyers were not inclined to go beyond certain price limit, which ginners did not oblige, brokers.

Ready market is expected to remain tight during the post-eid holiday trading sessions as ginners could bank on their holding capacity in view of the falling unsold stock with them, brokers said.

Reports from the New York cotton market were also bullish where both the contracts rose further by 0.54 and 0.47 cents per lb at 46.71 and 47.70 for both the ruling March and the distant May settlements.

Local official spot rates on the other hand were firmly held at the previous level. Ready off-take was light totalling about 5,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals. Upper Sindh K-68 was not traded as ginners were asking higher prices for fine lots.

The following are some of the deals, which went through late on Wednesday evening: 1,000 bales, Khanpur at Rs2,100 and 1,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,125 and 800 bales each Shahdadpur and Sanghar at Rs1,950.