KARACHI, July 19: The cotton market on Tuesday showed quietly steady trend as spinners and mills again neglected the ready section and tried to go along lint auctions by the TCP.

“We can’t afford to miss the TCP tender auctions as we want to bridge supply gaps here and there before the arrival of new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt,” spinners said.

The mill tally from the TCP is said to be close to a million bale mark and that reflects a major breakthrough on the export front in the post-WTO regime, analysts said, adding that this could mean that they have seemingly outwitted their immediate foreign competitors.

An idea of mill scramble for the TCP lint may be had from the fact that they are willing to pay more despite a fall of the ruling October contract at the barrier of 50 cents per lb.

With only a couple of more auctions around as the TCP will stop sales by the middle of the next month, the spinners and mills are expected to buy as much lint as they could during its next auctions.

However, indications are that the unsold stock with the TCP before the deadline of Aug 15 may be around 0.3m bales, which will serve as a buffer stock, market sources said.

New York cotton futures fell by 0.45 and 0.65 cents per lb for both the ruling October and forward December settlements at 49.09 and 50.80 cents, respectively, followed by reports of a fall in US export orders and higher crop ideas.

But there is no change in selling prices of the TCP for local buyers but foreign importers would like to witness a negative impact of the fall in the local rates if any.

Official spot rates, therefore, remained pegged at the last close of Rs2,375 per maund, although there was no feedback from the ready market.

There is no official figure for the ready business, but some brokers said stray inter-mill deals were reported, totalling about 2,000 bales at around Rs2,400 per maund.