KARACHI, May 26: Trading on the cotton market on Thursday remained insipid as ginners of southern Punjab held on to their unsold stocks apparently anticipating increase in prices. Physical business, therefore, remained at a low ebb, although some of the brokers said Punjab spinners were lifting modest quantities from the southern Punjab ginners at below Rs2,300 per maund.

Floor brokers said local prices, notably in physical trading were mostly guided by the rates at which the TCP was selling its stocks to mills and foreign buyers in its weekly auctions.

“To entertain higher price idea beyond the prevailing one appears to be on the higher side and spinners may not be attracted as now they have an alternate source of buying to meet their requirements”, they said.

The cotton trade is now between the spinners and the ginners as both have to operate within their parity levels on the export front and staple length of the lots involved, they added. New York cotton futures, which have been stable around 50 cents for the last about two weeks, despite speculative selling indicated that world prices may remain steady around the current levels despite higher consumption predictions.

But some others said import of lint may still not be feasible as after adding overhead costs it is still a bit expensive and beyond the scope of spinners and mills.

Moreover, spinners need not to go for foreign lint as the TCP has about 1.2m bales enough to meet the entire demand of the textile sector before the arrival of the new crop from the lower Sindh ginneries sometime in late July. It was perhaps in this background that official spot rates were firmly held at the last close of Rs2,225 per maund. But on the other hand New York cotton futures rose by 0.29 and 0.20 cents per lb at 50.37 and 52.00 cents per lb for both the ruling July and the new crop October contracts respectively. Ready off-take was light totalling 400 bales sold at Rs2,075 per maund.