January 25, 2006	Wednesday	Zilhaj 24, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 24: Cotton market on Tuesday showed firm trend as ginners raised their asking prices after spinners resumed their normal covering operations.

Most of the deals were finalized at a uniform rate of Rs2,550, up Rs25 per maund above the previous session’s rate and dealers said that the price could further rise as mills had still to go a long way to cover their forward foreign sales.

The sentiment in part was also influenced bullishly in sympathy with higher New York cotton futures prices amid market talk that China was expected to re-enter the world market to make up its short position for the next quarter, brokers said.

China has been out of the US market for the last couple of months after having met its nearby demand, which in turn has pushed world prices well below the 50-cent per lb benchmark.

The New York cotton futures are now progressively inching up to its new benchmark price of 60 cents, which the local ginners believed was expected to raise their bargaining capacity, market sources said.

Both the ruling March and May settlements on Monday were quoted at 56.78 and 57.74 cents per lb respectively, signalling that resumption of buying by China could push them up to that level, they said.

Ginners said that they were now not worried over the large unsold stocks, which ensure higher rates in the changing future cotton outlook and that was why the ready off-take remained modest.

According to unofficial figure, ginners still hold an unsold stock of about 2m bales owing to selective buying by mills and spinner in an apparent effort to keep prices within their export parity levels, they said.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the overnight levels despite active business in the ready section on much higher prices.

Ready off-take was active totalling 10,000 bales as under: 3,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,550, 1,000 bales, Ahmedpur East at Rs2,550, 1,000 bales, Khanpur at Rs2,400 to Rs2,550, 3,000 bales, Uch Sharif at Rs2,550, 500 bales also at this rate, 400 bales, Bahawalnagar at Rs2,400 to Rs2,450 and 400 bales, Muridwala at Rs2,350, both inferior lots.