KARACHI: Steady flow of buying helped the cotton market on Thursday to witness mild activity with prices generally remained firm. However, overall sentiment remained depressed and devoid of much needed activity.

Floor brokers said that falling trend in commodity markets including cotton was having an adverse impact on domestic cotton as well where phutti (seed cotton) prices moved lower for second straight session.

The market was abuzz that with huge inventory of oil on the world market the prices were bound to move lower in the coming days and this would once again trigger downward trend in commodities all over the world.

Brokers said that yarn market continued to be under pressure due to lack of buying interest from value-added sectors of textile. Consequently, slower exports coupled with slow off-take of yarn by domestic consumers was also having negative impact on the cotton market.

The New York cotton largely closed in the negative with the exception of maturing March and far-off December 2016 contracts that made modest gains. All the other future contracts closed easy.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates were unchanged at overnight level.

Major deals on ready counter were: 1,200 bales from Dharki (Rs5,500), 400 bales from Dunyapur (Rs4,775), 600 bales from Faqirwali (Rs5,300), 2,000 bales from Khanewal (Rs5,425), 1,600 bales from Chowk Monda (Rs5,425), 400 bales from Sadiqabad (Rs5,600) and 200 bales from Mianwali (Rs5,650).

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2016