KARACHI, July 29: Trading on the cotton market on Friday remained insipid as lower Sindh ginners held back their new crop lots apparently for a better price in the coming sessions. They are now entertaining the idea of an increase in prices as arrivals of phutti are expected to dry up because of late Thursday and early Friday rain in the coastal belt and lower Sindh cotton belt, brokers said.
The picking operations of phutti are suspended for a couple of days as the quality of lint is damaged in wet fields where movements of women pickers are also affected, they said. However, the current of moon soon rain is beneficial for the crop in other cotton growing areas of both Sindh and Punjab where it still has not reached the flowering stage, ginners said.
“Whether or not the current rain cause price flare-up in the new crop is anybody’s guess, but the ginners have decided to hold on to their unsold stocks of lint to ascertain the spinner reaction,” market sources said. After having purchased a substantial quantity of lint from the TCP, the spinners are not in a hurry to go for the new crop at least for the near-term, they said.
Moreover, the TCP is still in the market as it has offered another 85,000 bales for sales to both local and foreign buyers in next Monday’s (Aug 1) auction, although the spinners and mills are now not that aggressive buyers as they were a couple of weeks earlier, they said.
Last Monday’s auction did get poor response from the spinners, which could well mean that they have already covered their forward positions against foreign sales, they added.
Official spot rates, therefore, remained pegged at the last level of Rs2,350 per maund in the absence of ready business.
New York cotton futures on the other hand posted fractional gains of 0.6 and 0.30 cents per lb at 50.11 and 51.76 cents for both the ruling October and the forward December contracts, respectively.
