KARACHI, Nov 11: Quietly steady conditions prevailed on the cotton market on Tuesday as ginners held on to their positions and did not lower their asking prices and appeared least worried over the larger unsold stocks lying in their godowns.

Another 25,000 bales, mostly from the Punjab cotton belt and of fine quality, changed hands at an average rate of Rs3,200 per maund.

Some inferior lots from the central Sindh were, however, traded as lower as Rs2,950, reflecting that the bulk of the ready business is being transacted on quality basis, floor brokers said.

Opinions are, however, divided over the future price outlook in the backdrop of prevailing turmoil on the foreign textile markets and the weakness of the New York cotton futures, which generally set the price trend the world over, they said.

The persistent decline in NY cotton, which are now close to breach the barrier of 40 cents per lb, however, could have its impact on the local lint in the coming weeks but how much is still unclear, they added.

But cotton analysts said the local price trend is essentially based on the supply and demand factors and may not be influenced by the external factors, adding: “If the crop is short below the revised target of 12.5m bales, it could rise further to its pre-reaction level of around Rs4,000 towards the close of the season”.

However, they fear if exports of textiles did not pick up by the next month, fall in mill demand could push price of lint again lower.

It was in this background that official spot rates were further lowered by Rs25 at Rs3,150 per maund but most of the deals in the ready section were done well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand were again marked down by 0.83 and 0.84 cents per lb at 41.24 and 44.76 cents for both the ruling December and the forward March contracts, respectively.

The following are some of the notable deals, which gone through on Tuesday evening:

SINDH TYPE: 800 bales, Mirpurkhas and Sultanabad at Rs2,950 to 3,000, 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs3,075 to 3,125, 1,000 bales, Khipro at Rs3,050 to 3,125, and 1,400 bales, upper Sindh at Rs3,225 to 3,250.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 2,000 bales, Khanewal and 1,200 bales, at Rs3,150 to 3,200, 400 bales, D.G. Khan at Rs3,175, 400 bales, Bahawalpur, Mian Channu, Muhammad Pur Dewan, Jalalpur, Jahania, at Rs3,200, 200 bales, each Hasilpur, and Layyah at 3,150.