June 08, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1427

KARACHI, June 7: Cotton market on Wednesday maintained steady trend as ginners and spinners remained locked in price war on the perception of an expected pressure on future supplies.

However, as the spinners were not inclined to lift fine lots at the ginner asking prices of Rs2,600 per maund, some of them opted for inferior stuff, which they needed to spin lower counts of cotton yarn for the local end-product users, brokers said.

Some of the leading spinners and mills remained conspicuous by their absence from the market and were busy with the tender business for the TCP’s sale offer of 30,000 bales on Thursday, they said.

But unlike the previous TCP auctions, some of the spinners tried to lift stray lots from the market and stayed away from the tender business owing perhaps to tough competition in the presence of foreign buyers.

Ginners said the TCP auction rate at which most of the deals were finalised could affect the local market either-way and leading among them preferred to keep to the sidelines rather than indulging in selling.

One thing appears certain that spinners will try to purchase all the lots around the benchmark price as they are still far away from their annual consumption needs, market sources said.

Reports of delay in the arrival of new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt also worry them as it could fuel price flare-up based on short supply in the coming sessions, they added.

Official spot rates were, therefore, firmly held at the overnight levels, although some of the deals were done well below them based on quality factors.

New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered fresh fall of 0.76 and 1.00 cents per lb at 51.88 and 55.40 cents for both the ruling July and new crop October contracts respectively.

Ready off-take was modest totalling about 4,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals: 1,000 bales, Mehrabpur at Rs2,200 to Rs2,225, 1,400 bales, Moro at Rs2,425 to Rs2,475 and 500 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,525.