KARACHI, Dec 24: Cotton market on Wednesday finished on a steady note as both ginners and spinners held on to their positions ahead of Thursday’s closure on account of birthday of Quaid-i-Azam.

Physical trading was light as spinners did not go for active buying as they have been doing for the last couple of weeks owing partly to delivery problems because of a holiday ahead.

Floor brokers said despite conflicting reports about the size of the crop, ginners are not inclined to lower their asking prices perhaps they know the actual size of the crop.

And that is perhaps why no one among them is inclined to sell below Rs3,100 and Rs3,200 per maund depending on the quality, they said adding the notable feature is that a hectic business is being transacted daily around these rates.

While official sources stick to their original figure of 10m bales plus, private sector is not inclined to go above the figure of 9.5m bales apparently basing their assessment on their private surveys.

However, one thing is pretty clear that spinners are in no mood to sit on the sidelines followed by reports of higher forward export sales and may remain in the market even though ginners further raise their asking prices, market sources said.

They said the current near-panic mill buying reflects that spinners and mills will continue to grab the floating stock of the fine lots meant to produce higher counts of cotton yarn for the export market irrespective of the asking prices.

“The hopes for cheaper foreign lint are diminishing each day as there appears to be no possibility of fall in the New York cotton futures from the current higher levels”, they said adding “the lint at 70 cent per lb is too expensive keeping in view the export prices of the end products”.

New York cotton futures on Tuesday finished mixed. While the ruling March delivery showed a fractional rise of 0.2 cents per lb, the forward May fell by 0.6 cents at 70.60 and 71.69 cents per lb respectively.

Official spot rates on the other hand did not show any change and were firmly held at the previous level of Rs3,125 per maund.

Ready offtake was modest owing to Thursday’s closure and amounted to 10,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals: 1,000 bales, Haroonabad at Rs3,100 to Rs3,200, 1,000 bales, Faqirwali at Rs3,150, 500 bales, Shujabad at Rs3,200, 1,000 bales, Rajanpur also at Rs3,200 and 1,000 bales, Mian Channu at Rs3,100.