July 15, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 18, 1427

KARACHI, July 14: Cotton prices on Friday showed fresh fall of Rs25 per maund as some of the ginners lowered their asking prices in an apparent effort to stimulate mill buying.

But spinners and mills were not in an obliging mood and kept to the sidelines apparently anticipating further fall in prices in the coming weeks, floor brokers said.

They said some of the southern Punjab ginners who were still holding fine lots were not worried over the falling mill demand and were holding on to their to their unsold positions on the perception that spinners still needed a lot of lint to cover their forward positions.

However, some of the ginners both from central Sindh and Punjab who are still holding odd unsold lots are trying to sell them at the lower rates to prepare themselves for the new crop, they added.

Some of the forward deals for the new crop at Rs2,450 per maund also worried them as future price outlook appears to be a bit bearish and they tried to sell their unsold stocks of low-mic lint.

But the arrival of new crop lint both from lower Sindh and central Punjab ginneries may not prove a market factor as its arrivals are expected to be too small to influence either way the ruling price, some others said.

But ginners said the chief factor behind ginners’ worries was the absence of mills from the market and its impact on the weaker links of the cotton trade, market sources said.

They said fresh fall in New York cotton futures was another aiding bearish factor, which

in spinners’ perceptions, was making imports of lint more competitive.

It was perhaps in this background that official spot rates were revised downward by Rs25 per maund but there were not many buyers even at the falling prices.

New York cotton futures suffered fresh setback of 0.74 and 0.70 cents at 51.15 and 53.01 cents per lb for both the ruling October and the forward December contracts, respectively.

Ready offtake remained light in the absence of strong mill demand and totalled around 1,000 bales sold at various rates depending on the quality of lint.