KARACHI, Oct 23: Cotton prices on Tuesday soared to new seasonal peak levels amid conflicting reports about the size of the crop in the Punjab, but phutti arrivals of 2.7m bales for the current fortnight tell a different story.
An idea of the panic among the spinners and the mills may be had from the fact that they resorted to nervous buying to grab the floating stock in an apparent effort to secure their forward deals with the foreign buyers, cotton analyst Naseem Usman said.As a result, some of the fine lots were sold as higher as Rs3,100 per maund, the average price being around Rs3,050 per maund, well above the export parity level of spinners, he added.
“The crop may not fall short of the 14m bales plus target, but speculative forces have made it look so apparently to benefit growers,” he observed, adding “phutti rate is inching up to previous all-time high of Rs1,700 per 40 kg”.
“Spinners and mills seem to be heading for another mid-season crisis of expensive lint which threatens the textile export target of $14 billion for the year,” some others said.
The cotton trade is progressively slipping into the hands of the speculators and some big guns, the chief beneficiary of which is expected to be grower, they added.
Official spot rates were again quoted higher by Rs25 per maund at Rs2,875 but in the ready section most of the deals were finalised Rs125 and Rs225 per maund higher rates.
New York cotton futures on the other hand were marked down by 0.53 and 0.32 cents per lb at 64.87 and 69.00 cents for both the ruling December and the forward March contracts respectively.
Ready business was on the higher side totalling about 20,000 bales amid panic mill buying. The following some of the notable deals.
SINDH TYPE: 200 bales, each, Kotri, Hyderabad and Sanghar at Rs3,100, 400 bales, each Moro and Sakrand at Rs3,025.
PUNJAB VARIETY: 1,400 bales, Khanewal, 800 bales, Kabirwala, 200 bales each Chishtian, Mian Channu, 600 bales, Mong Bangalow, 400 bales, Bhawana and Jhang at Rs3,100, 1,000 bales, Pakpattan, 400 bales, each D.G. Khan, Gaggon, Hasilpur and Ghazi Ghat at Rs3,050 and 1,400 bales, Burewala at Rs3,025 to Rs3,050.
