April 20, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1429

KARACHI, April 19: The cotton market closed the weekend session on cheerless note as both buyers and sellers kept to the sidelines as their price ideas failed to find a meeting ground.

The fresh fall in New York cotton futures for the third session in a row has raised hopes among the spinners and mills that any rate below 70 cents per lb will be competitive to make more forward deals, said a leading floor broker, adding “the current lackluster activity was because of this perception”.

According to textile sources, the industry still need another half a million bales to meet their annual consumption target in addition to an unsold stock of 0.4m bales lying in the godowns of leading ginners.

Spinners said ginners are quoting much higher rates even for average quality lint, which they claim are higher as compared to international prices.

After having imported well over 3.5m bales of lint from various countries including 1.8m bales from India, spinners and mills reenter the market just to show their presence and not willing buyers, ginners claim.

That is perhaps why the daily ready off-take is highly erratic and never exceed beyond 2,000 to 3,000 bales, they said, adding there is no scare among the leading ginners, who hold bulk of the unsold stock.

They said the weaker links of ginners had already sold their stocks and are awaiting the arrival of the new crop sometime late July or early August from the lower Sindh cotton belt, while their leading partners are sitting firmly on their unsold stocks indicating they will name their own prices. New York cotton futures on Friday were quoted lower by 0.87 and 0.68 cents per lb at 71.07 and 74.94 cents for both the ruling May and the new crop July contracts, respectively. There was, however, no change in the local official spot rates, which were quoted unchanged at Rs3,300 per maund. Ready off-take was light as only a deal of 1,000 bales, Khipro was reported at Rs3,400.