KARACHI, Oct 17: Cotton market stayed bullish on Friday as ginners and spinners were locked in a price war but the latter remained at the receiving end amid fears of a short crop.

However, lint prices seem to have been stabilized around Rs3,200 per maund as spinners appear to be reluctant to go beyond this rates owing apparently to export parity reasons, brokers said.

The trading activity on the Cotton Exchange remained relatively slow for the third day in a row as main supply line from the KCA substation was damaged owing to fire in the office on a cotton exporter.

Both the leading brokerage houses and the KCA highups have to shut down their offices well before the sunset owing to the darkness in the massive building.

“Our links between the ginners in the upcountry remain suspended till next morning and so did with the foreign buyers of local lint. The communication gap between the buyers and sellers causes sharp shrinkage in the ready business,” says a leading broker adding “never before the KCA has ever witnessed such a long disruption in the power supply.”

As offices of the leading brokerage are closed before the sunset, the details of physical trading are transmitted to the KCA offices the next day and in the meantime prices record further changes, mostly on the higher side.

Meanwhile, conflicting reports coming from the cotton belt about the crop situation, which has made it pretty difficult to form definite opinion about the total production, market sources said.

But it is satisfying to note that spinners have decided to go slow with a view to containing further increase in prices, they said. That is perhaps why most of the deals were done in line with the overnight rates.

Highups of Aptma were in session but the details of their decisions taken at the meeting were not immediately known owing to early closure of the brokerage offices.

Official spot rates were further upped by Rs75 but New York cotton futures on the other hand fell from the recent peak level by 0.39 and 0.66 cents per lb for both the ruling December and the distant March settlements at 74.09 and 78.70 cents per lb respectively.

Ready offtake was active as about 10,000 bales changed hands late on Thursday evening. The following being notable among them:

SINDH VARIETY: 900 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,950 to Rs3,000, 600 bales, Shahdadpur at the same rates, 1,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs3,150 and 400 bales, Nawabshah at Rs3,100.