November 25, 2006	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 3, 1427

KARACHI, Nov 24: Cotton market on Friday showed bullish trend as ginners further raised their asking prices followed by reports of a considerable fall in arrivals of phutti.

Most of the leading ginners were not inclined to sell their lint stocks below Rs2,525 per maund and spinners were reluctant to bid at the new asking prices. As a result, ready off-take suffered a sharp contraction as compared to previous sessions, brokers said.

“The market is in the tight grip of growers who are in no mood to sell their phutti below Rs1,300 per 40 kg,” ginners said, adding “the falling phutti arrivals signals that leading growers are holding on to their unsold positions”.

Stray arrivals followed by fixation by some of the leading growers around Rs1,300 indicates that they are holding back a good bit of their stocks.

“After adding conversion charges and other overheads, the break-even point for us is Rs2,600 per maund,” ginners claim and added that it shows that prices could rise from the current levels in the coming weeks.

But whether or not spinners would follow that line of perception about the future supplies will be clear during the next week.

However, one thing appears certain smaller groups of spinners would be at a disadvantage if prices rose further.

But spinners hope that prices could fall from the current higher levels as the holding capacity of the growers is not that strong and weaker among them will sold their phutti at the offered prices of ginners having sympathetic decline in lint rates. Official spot rates were, however, held at the last level of Rs2,425 per maund well below being quoted in the ready section.

Mill ready off-take was relatively slow owing to increase in prices and till late Thursday evening about 12,000 bales changed hands as under:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,400-2,450, 1,000 bales, Dadu at Rs2,425, 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,350-2,375, 1,000 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,375, 1,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs2,425 and 2,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,500.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 1,000 bales, each Rahimyar Khan and Rajanpur 400 bales, Shujaabad, 800 bales, Ahmedpur East, 600 bales, Lodhran and 600 bales, Sadiqabad at Rs2,500.