KARACHI, June 28: The trading activity on the cotton market remained slow but spinners lifted all the lots offered by the ginners below Rs2,700 per maund amid slow trading.
But like the previous sessions, big-lot business was witnessed as some of the ginners both from the central Punjab and Sindh cleared their unsold stocks including odd lots in an apparent effort to adjust bank overdrafts and renew them for the next fiscal.
Ginners said most of their active partners have already cleared their unsold positions but leading among them from the southern Punjab cotton belt are still holding on to their stray stocks to sell them at the higher levels before the arrival of new crop.
Earlier, in the week some fine lots were sold around Rs2,700, the highest rate so far being Rs2,710 per maund but after the TCP latest tender for the sale of 33,000 bales, spinners are not inclined to test this level at least for the near-term, they said.
According to market sources leading ginners from the upper Sindh and southern Punjab ginneries may not have unsold stock above 0.1m bales but spinners have decided not to go beyond their export parity levels followed by reports that new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt is expected to be available by the middle of the next month though on a modest scale.
Spinners hope that the arrival of new crop could have a stabilising impact on the prices and force ginners to sell crop amid fears that the market forces of supply and demand could force them to revise downward their asking prices.
As a result, official spot rates were firmly held around their previous levels although some of the deals were done well above them depending on the quality of lint.
New York cotton futures on the other hand posted modest rise of 0.19 cents per lb for both the maturing July and the ruling October settlement at 47.95 and 51.67 cents per lb, respectively.
Ready off-take was modest totalling about 5,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals: 1,800 bales, Vehari at Rs2,650 and 700 bales, at 2,680 and 1,638 bales, of Jhole at 2,550 per maund.
