10 March 2005	Thursday	28 Muharram 1426

KARACHI, March 9: The cotton market on Wednesday stayed weak as official spot rates were further lowered in line with the inferior stuff from central Sindh ginneries.

But in physical trading, some of the fine lots were sold at around Rs2,300 per maund, reflecting the presence of mill buying for quality lots, which they need to spin higher counts of cotton yarn, brokers said.

Although the selling price of fine lots shows a decline of Rs50 to Rs100 per maund from the pre-reaction dealings last week, some of the ginners are still holding on to their quality stocks hoping further increase in the sessions to come. However, a persistent easing in the prices for the last three sessions, which clipped Rs65 per maund from the previous level is not in line with the objective conditions, notably the supply and demand, brokers said.

Despite reports of forward deals for a substantial quantity of lint from various sources to make up possible local crop shortfall and falling unsold stocks with the ginners, the current decline in prices appears to be speculative rather than genuine, they said.

"Mill intake is expected to top the 13m bales mark during the current season followed by reports of steady textile exports and fresh import orders," they said. And that is perhaps why, the mills and spinners make forward deals as there was no official word whether the TCP sells in part its stock of 2.5m bales to the mills or seeks exports, some others said.

Whether or not prices rise from the current level at the fag-end of the current season before the arrivals of new crop is anybody's guess, but talk of sales of lint by the TCP to China is still a dominating market factor, they added.

Official spot rates were further lowered by Rs15, but on the other hand New York cotton futures recovered from the overnight lows and were quoted higher by 0.89 and 1.08 cents per lb at 50.42 and 51.52 cents for both the maturing March and the ruling May contracts, respectively.

Ready off take was light totalling about 5,000 bales as under: 1,000 bales, Mirpur Mathelo and Rohri at Rs2,285; 100 bales, Sarhari at Rs2,150; 300 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,250; 344 and 500 bales, Rahimyar Khan and Fort Abbas and 500 bales, Haroonabad at Rs2,300 as the stuff in trade was of better quality.