February 3, 2006	Friday	Muharram 4, 1427

KARACHI, Feb 2: Cotton prices on Thursday showed a modest fall as some of the ginners lowered their asking prices ahead of the release of official arrival figures of phutti.

In the absence of any market rumours about the size of the arrivals for the fortnight ended Jan 31, ginners holding stray unsold positions tried to get out of the market fearing further fall in prices, brokers said.

Some of the lots from the southern Punjab cotton belt, known for quality lint were sold about Rs50 per maund lower as compared to the overnight level of Rs2,550

“The latest arrival figures could well prove a trend setters for the market in the coming month as they will be close to final,” says a leading broker adding” leading ginners are entertaining higher price ideas for the second half of the current season based on lower crop.”

He said although spinners need more supplies to see the current season through, they will not opt for panic buying irrespective of the size of the arrivals and the total crop.

Both the mills and the spinners would remain in the market but continue to lift modest lots in an apparent effort to keep prices within the current levels irrespective of size of the crop, he added.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the textile sector show that physical shipments of export consignments are on the higher side and, in turn have lowered their unsold stocks of both cotton yarn and finished items.

World textile prices have shown an improvement during the last couple of weeks in sympathy with higher New York cotton futures and their positive impact on the textiles the world over.

New York cotton futures tended to be further modestly higher for the second session in a row and ended with fresh fractional rise of 0.15 cents per lb at 55.87 and 57.29 cents per lb for both the ruling March and the distant May contracts.

Local official rates remained pegged at the last levels despite modest decline in prices at which some deals were finalized.

Ready offtake was light around 6,000 bales as under: 1,000 bales each, Basti Malook and Lodhran at 2,500, 1,000 bales, Sadiqabad at 2,500 to 2,550 and 1,000 bales, Upper Sindh at 2,500 to 2,525.