KARACHI, Sept 27: Cotton prices on Saturday eased further as ginners lowered their asking prices followed by reports of steady phutti arrivals into the ginneries.

Market sources said ginners were not prepared to accept a sudden pick up in arrivals of phutti into the ginneries prior to the Eid holidays and tried to clear their unsold positions after having lowered their asking prices by Rs100 per maund.

The other factor which could push prices further lower was that recent arrivals indicated that the crop might not be as short as being speculated if the private surveys conducted by the spinners were to be believed, they added.

“It is widely speculated that the crop may be 10 to 15 per cent higher than the revised target despite pest attack in the Punjab cotton belt, but it would below the official target of 14m bales,” they added.

Prices could ease further from the current levels in post-Eid sessions despite pent up mill demand as ginners are not inclined to hold long positions owing to the prevailing turmoil on the world markets including New York cotton futures, they added.

Most of the deals in physical trading were finalised at Rs3,865 on the lower side and Rs3,900 per maund on the higher side depending on the quality of lint.

Floor brokers said the interesting feature of trading was that no deal was reported in the Punjab variety owing to higher asking prices.

But ginners from the central Sindh cotton belt were not inclined to hold long positions and cleared the backlog below Rs3,900 per maund but modest bales were traded.

Phutti rates also showed sharp decline at Rs1,775 to Rs1,850 per 40 kg but in Sindh it was being quoted at Rs1,850 to Rs1,900 owing to fine quality.Official spot rates were marked further down by Rs50 at Rs3,900 per maund.

While the New York cotton futures maintained their downward drift and suffered fresh fall of 1.15 and 1.28 cents per lb at 58.06 and 60.38cents for both the ruling October and the distant December contracts respectively.

Mill ready off-take was light owing to delivery problems totalling 2,000 bales, all from Sindh ginneries as under: 400 bales each, Shahdadpur and Tando Adam at Rs3,900, 200 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs3,850, 200 bales, Hyderabad at Rs3,865 and 400 bales, Khipro at Rs3,870.