May 29, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 23, 1429

KARACHI, May 28: Cotton market maintained a bullish trend on Wednesday as ginners further raised their asking prices owing to tight ready position and falling unsold stocks.

As a result, stay lots of fine lint, both from the upper Sindh and the central Punjab ginneries, changed hands at a uniform rate of Rs4,000 per maund, indicating a further hike in the coming sessions, floor brokers said.

They said although spinners and mills did not opt for panic buying in an apparent effort to keep prices below Rs4,000 level, but their regulated support failed to check increase in prices.

Lower grade of lint may be available below this level, indications are that ginners are inclined to take better quality lint to new highs before the arrival of the new crop, they added.

“I don’t fathom why spinners and mills are pushing prices to new all-time peak levels,” said a cotton analyst, adding “they had already imported about four million bales during the current season from various sources and together with local crop of 11 million bales plus, their supply line could hardly be choked at least for the current season.”

According to official figures, the annual intake of the entire textile sector may not increase beyond 15m bales, and together with carryover stocks, the supplies are said to be enough to see the year through, he said.

The interesting feature is that New York cotton prices for the ruling July contracts had fallen to well below the benchmark of 70 cents per lb at 66.25 and that of the new October crop to 71.51 after the limit fall of 2.96 and 3.00 cents per lb in both the settlements, respectively.

But on the other hand, local official spot rates were revised upward by Rs50 at Rs3,650 per maund.

Mill ready off-take was light, which included 400 bales, from upper Sindh and 600 bales, from Harappa at Rs4,000 per maund.