March 08, 2007	Thursday	Safar 18, 1428

KARACHI, March 7: Trading activity on the cotton market again slowed down on Wednesday as spinners kept to the sidelines most of the time for not any cogent reason.

“Spinners and mills enter the market with a bang and lift all the lots offered by the ginners for sale and stay away next day in apparent effort to outwit ginners,” some brokers said.

Floor brokers said ginners were well aware that mills still needed substantial quantity of lint to see the current season through, but their chief worry appeared to be prices should remain within their export parity levels.

That was perhaps why they bought only those lots offered below Rs2,650 per maund for fine lots and around Rs2,550 per maund for average quality lint, they added.

But some others said consignments of imported stuff had started arriving in their godowns against their forward deals and they may not be as worried as they were few weeks back.

Moreover, the current decline in world cotton prices owing to weak New York cotton futures and dollar-linked worries had also raised hopes of further decline in prices in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, local brokers reported some improvement on the yarn market and steady offtake by the ancillary industry, but mill inventories remained on the higher side due to fall in exports.

Official spot rates were, therefore, again held unchanged at the overnight level of Rs2,525, although some of the deals were done above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand showed a mixed trend, the maturing March contract fell by 0.57 cents at 54.50 cents per lb and the ruling May contract rose by 0.54 cents at 53.59 cents per lb.

Ready offtake was light as only 200 bales from Sanghar changed hands at Rs2,560 per maund.