January 24, 2008	Thursday	Muharram 14, 1429

KARACHI, Jan 23: Cotton market on Wednesday lacked normal trading interest as both buyers and sellers kept to the sidelines apparently awaiting some positive developments on the international cotton front.

Mill ready off-take remained on the lower side for the fourth session in a row as only stray lots changed hands and there was no big deal even for the fine lots was reported.However, ginners were not worried over the developing situation on the local cotton front and firmly held on to their unsold positions, floor brokers said.

They said the recent steep decline in New York cotton futures below 70 cents per lb for the ruling forward March contract seemed to have raised hopes of further fall in the coming weeks.

But ginners were sitting pretty comfortable on their unsold stock of about 1.6m bales anticipating spinners and mills may resume normal buying operations any time as a short crop was haunting them like anything, they added.

“The import of lint may be competitive in the coming weeks if the current bearish trend continues on the world markets,” cotton analysts said, adding “spinners have curtailed their local buying at the current higher rates”.

But the world supply is terribly short to meet the demand and that would have positive impact on the ruling prices in the coming weeks.

It was perhaps in this background that the New York cotton futures were marked down by 0.90 and 0.91 cents per lb at 69.33 and 71.61 cents for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts, respectively.

There was, however, no change in the official spot rates which were held unchanged at Rs3,200 per maund.

Physical business in the ready section was light totalling about 1,000 bales as under: 400 bales, each upper Sindh and Sadiqabad at Rs3,350 and Rs3,300 per maund, respectively.