KARACHI, Nov 19: Trading on the cotton market on Monday resumed on a steady note as spinners and mills continued to cover their forward positions against their foreign sales of yarn and textiles.
Floor brokers said spinners were worried over the fall of about a million bales in phutti arrivals for the fortnight ended Nov 15 fearing further increase in prices in the coming sessions.
Although there was no immediate bullish impact on the ruling prices as leading spinners and mills reduced their daily intake but late in the evening some deals were reported around the weekend level of Rs3,300 per maund, they said.
But late on Saturday evening prices showed some softening as most of the deals were finalised around Rs3,250 or slightly below it but the fall in arrivals of phutti may push them further higher, some others said.
According to arrival figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) for the fortnight ended November 15, the total was lower by about a million bales at 5.59 million bales as compared to 6.8m bales the same period last season.
In Sindh, the total arrivals showed a modest rise of 0.269m bales at 1.8m bales as compared to previous 1.5m bales, while the major fall of 1.2m was recorded in Punjab owing to mid-season pest attack, the PCGA stated.
The total crop is expected to be well below the annual consumption of mills and bridging the gap demand supply gap appears to be an expensive affair in view of the higher world cotton prices, analysts said.
And that could have negative impact on the export performance of the textile sector, which contribute well over 60 per cent to the total annual proceeds.
Official spot rates were firmly held at the last levels but most of the deals in the ready section were done well above them.
About 10,000 bales changed hands in the ready section, mostly in the Punjab variety because of quality reasons, notable among them being: 400 bales, Sadiqabad at Rs3,300, 1,000 bales, each Haroonabad, Bahawalpur, Rajanpur, Rahimyar Khan and some other stations at a uniform rate of Rs3,250.
