October 20, 2006	Friday	Ramazan 26, 1427

KARACHI, Oct 19: After hectic mill buying during the last two weeks, trading activity on the cotton market on Thursday slightly slowed down in the backdrop of latest arrival figures of phutti into the ginneries.

Floor brokers said both the buyers and sellers preferred to have an overview of their inventories before resuming trading in the light of new arrival figures.

According to figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association for the fortnight ending Oct 15, 2.468m bales had arrived in the ginneries, out of which spinners and mills have purchased 1.683m bales, and exporters 23,900 bales, leaving an unsold stock of 0.761m bales.

Ginners said larger than normal unsold stocks lying with their ginneries could trigger panic selling by some weaker links, which in turn would push prices further lower in the post-Eid holiday trading sessions.

Market sources said despite active mill buying during the last two weeks at the falling prices, the unsold stocks were above normal, reflecting steady arrivals of phutti into the ginneries as compared to daily mill intake.

However, they hoped that the backlog caused apparently by pre-Eid holiday delivery problems was expected to be cleared after the Eid holidays and the pent-up mill demand was expected to figure prominently.

But whether or not active mill demand could push prices higher from the current levels is not clear as it will largely depend on the fresh arrivals of phutti into the ginneries.

Official spot rates were firmly held at the previous levels but most of the deals in the ready section were done below them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand fell by 0.87 and 1.02 cents per lb at 48.33 and 51.43 cents for both the ruling December and the forward March contracts, respectively.

Ready offtake was relatively slow as spinners slowed down their buying apparently anticipating further fall in prices in the wake of larger arrivals.

About 8,000 bales changed hands as under:

SINDH VARIETY: 1,000 bales, Mirpurkhas, 400 bales, each Sanghar and Nawabshah, 200 bales, Rasoolabad, 600 bales, Moro and 400 bales, Bandhi at Rs2,325; 400 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,300 to Rs2,350; 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,300 to Rs2,325.

PUNJAB TYPE: 700 bales, Sadiqabad, 400 bales, Burewala at Rs2.400; 600 bales, Sahiwal at Rs2,380; 600 bales, Uch Sharif at Rs2,415; and 400 bales, Rajanpur at Rs2,425.