February 15, 2008	Friday	Safar 07, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 14: After persistent decline of the last two sessions, cotton market on Thursday resisted fresh fall as ginners did not indulge in renewed selling and firmly held on to their unsold positions.

Physical activity, therefore, failed to pick up price ideas and sellers and buyers were poles apart and no one among them was inclined to soften his rigid position about their parity levels, market sources said.

But some leading brokers claimed that stray lots from the southern Punjab ginneries

did change hands at an average rate of Rs3,200 per maund, details of which were, however, not immediately available, they

added.

But some of the leading spinners attributed the current sluggishness to liquidity crunch and higher asking prices well above our export parity levels.

“After having spent well over Rs20 billion on imports of lint to make up for the local crop shortfall, our spending capacity has already reached close to our overdraft limits,” they said which in turn is ”limiting our daily market operations.” Ginners have also complained about the financial problems as well over Rs20 billion are tied up to the unsold stocks and in the absence of mills buying our overheads are accumulating each day in the form of bank charges.

Weaker links among us, whose holding capacity is the lowest, are worried over the absence of mills’ demand and some of them are inclined to further lower the asking prices to get out of the market, they added.

There was no change in the official spot rates, which were again held unchanged at Rs3,100 per maund.

But on the other hand New York cotton futures suffered fresh fractional decline of 0.11 and 0.16 cents per lb at 66.90 and 68.64 for both the maturing March and the ruling May contracts, respectively.

Ready business remained slow as till late in the evening no broker reported any deal either in Sindh or the Punjab variety.