KARACHI: Cotton prices edged higher on Friday on intense buying from big spinners. Reports of slow phutti (seed cotton) arrivals during the last fortnight (Feb 15 to 28) caused panic buying from leading spinners, brokers said.

Floor brokers said that trading was normal in the beginning, the fortnightly production report released by the ginners’ body indicating smaller-than-anticipated crop caused panic in the trading ring.

The cotton picking in Sindh has come to an end, while in Punjab very little phutti has been left for picking in the fields. This strongly indicated that the crop size would not be more than 10.07 million bales, i.e. around 10 per cent lower than the last season.

The other disturbing factor for the spinners was the dwindling stocks of cotton with ginners who are reported to be holding only 600,000 bales, whereas the next crop was still about five to six months away.

Consequently, this trigged buying from small and big spinners who believe that cotton prices on the domestic market are still lower than other world leading cotton markets, including India.

Though the Karachi Cotton Association left its spot rates unchanged, but some deals on the ready counter were quoted at seasonal high prices.

The following major deals were reported on the ready counter were: 400 bales from Bhakkar at Rs6,550, 400 bales from Faqirwali at Rs68,00, 400 bales from Bahawalpur at Rs6,950, 650 bales from Sadiqabad at Rs7,000, 7,400 bales from Khanewal at Rs7,000, 655 bales from Kot Sabzai at Rs7,000, 7,278 bales from Bahawalpur at Rs6,900 to Rs7,150, 200 bales from Bahawalpur at Rs7,150 (conditional) and 2,00 bales from Bahawalpur at Rs7,250 (conditional).

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2017