February 03, 2008	Sunday	Muharram 24, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 2: Cotton market finished the weekend session on a cheerless note as spinners kept to sidelines throughout the session and did not bid for fresh supplies despite the fact that some of the ginners have further lowered their asking prices.

While leading ginners are sitting pretty comfortable on their unsold stocks apparently on the perception that spinners will have to come to them though a bit late, said a broker.

But some others said the absence of spinners and mills from the market as a sole buyer is intriguing, notably in the backdrop of a short crop and higher world prices, he said.

“There appears to be a move to unnerve ginners, notably their weaker links not to make fresh covering purchases in an effort to force them to lower their asking prices,” market sources said.

But some others said leading spinners and mills were awaiting the figure of phutti arrivals for the fortnight ended Jan 31 and would base their future buying on the basis of supplies for the near-term until the final figure was available.

However, no one could deny the fact that the textile sector would lift the entire unsold stock before the new crop hit the market, but they will resume fresh buying after having a fair idea of their stocks and total inventories, they said.

According to market sources spinners and mills have so far imported about 1.5m bales from various countries and more consignments are in the pipeline to make up the local crop shortfall.New York cotton futures tended further higher by 0.37 and 0.38 cents per lb for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts at 68.16 and 70.08 cents, respectively.

There was no change in the local spot rates, which were firmly held at the overnight level of Rs3,150 per maund.

In the ready section, only 200 bales, from a Mirpurkhas ginnery changed hands at Rs3,215 but some brokers said some others lots also changed hands but details were not available.