May 5, 2006	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1427

KARACHI, May 4: Cotton market on Thursday showed firm trend as ginners held on to their unsold positions on the perception that pressure on future supplies could tilt the price balance in their favour.

The other positive development was higher prices, notably offered by the foreign buyers in April 3 tender reinforced the ginner perception of a robust increase in the existing rates based on ready supplies, brokers said.

Big-lot business, notably in the southern Punjab fine type shows that spinners and mills have no some rethinking on the future price outlook and are back in the market to cover their forward positions, they added.

During the last couple of weeks, spinners have almost regulated their daily offtake in an effort despite a short crop to keep prices of lint within their parity levels and they confidently managed the mechanism during this period.

According to unofficial figures unsold stocks with the ginners are around 0.350m bales, far below the mill consumption needs before the arrivals of new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt in July.

Owing to successive auctions, stocks held by the TCP are falling after each tender owing to strong demand from both the local and foreign buyers as was reflected four-time higher bids than the actual number of bales was on sale, market sources said.

It was perhaps in this background that two big deals of 4,600 and 9,000 bales gone through as a leading group of spinners having in mind the future price and supply outlook is making an hectic effort to grab the floating stock at the prevailing rates.

Both the deals, from Khanpur ginneries were finalised at a uniform rate of Rs2,475, highest for fine lint from this area.

Official spot rates on the other hand did not show any change and were again quoted at 2,425 per maund.

New York cotton futures on the other hand rose modestly by 0.20 and 0.28 points at 49.45 and 51.19 for both the maturing May and the ruling July contracts respectively.