May 04, 2007	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 16, 1428

KARACHI, May 3: Cotton market on Thursday showed quietly steady trend as ginners firmly held on to their unsold positions apparently awaiting the final crop figures and their impact on the prices.

But in physical trading a modest deal of fine lot from a southern Punjab ginnery was finalised at Rs2,825 per maund, reflecting that spinners and mills are back in the market after awaiting fall in prices for the last couple of weeks.

The current forward deal shows that supply and demand factors are now at work, which in turn may add to the overheads of spinners in the coming weeks, floor brokers said.

“It will be pretty difficult to get lint at competitive price after the final crop figures are released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) during the current week,” they said adding “an unsold stock of about 0.350m bales is far less than the actual consumption needs of the textile sector during the last quarter of the current year.”

But spinners claim that they have already made forward deals for the needed lint to bridge the supply gaps after world prices fell below the benchmark of 50 cents per lb.

“Our weaker links are also on the international cotton markets and are booking some consignments at competitive rates,” they said.

New York cotton future were on Thursday quoted at 46.55

and 48.62 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the forward July contracts respectively, up by 0.30 and 0.40 cents per lb.

However, real direction of the market will be known by the end of the current week as by that time final crop figure would have its full impact on the local prices, they added.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the last level of Rs2,700 per maund but some deals were done above them.

Ready off-take was light totaling about 2,000 bales as under: 800 bales, Khanpur at Rs2,825 and 400 bales, Rohri at 2,700.