KARACHI, Jan 9: Physical business on the cotton market on Wednesday lacked aggressiveness as spinners made selective purchases of quality lots and did not go for a “big kill” after the entry of exporters as third buyers.

Floor brokers who have been predicting a big change in the market psychology after exporters resumed their buying operations against their forward sales were a bit surprised over the spinners reluctance to resort to panic buying.

Spinners remained choosy as they have been during the previous couple of weeks and lifted only those lots, which conform to their quality standards as well export parity levels, they added.

“The expected heating up of the market after the exporters entry has no relevance to the objective conditions on the cotton trade,” they say, but added “the resumption of buying by exporters signals that normalcy is fast returning to the export trade suspended by the Afghan war and that is good sign for the market”.

Although most of the leading exporters are buying inferior types against their export orders, there presence in the market for a longer period could have a positive impact on the overall price line during the coming weeks.

But spinners banking on the larger unsold stocks of over 2m bales appear to be least worried over the developing situation and are playing safe to forestall any undue price flare-up, market sources said.

However, ginners are hard-pressed as about Rs25 billion are tied to their unsold stocks and are seeking the TCP co-operation to bail them out from the current impasse.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the southern Punjab cotton belt indicate that thick clouds of fog are fading progressively and ginners are expected to resume buying of dry phutti from the growers, which they have suspended owing to high incidence of moisture in it.

Ready offtake was light totalling about 12,000 bales as under:

SINDH TYPE: 300 bales of Sanghar at Rs1,650, 400 bales, purchased by an exporter at Rs1,625, 100 bales, Shahdadpur also bought by an exporter at the same rate, 1,000 bales of Sinjoro at Rs1,650, 600 bales, Naushero Feroz at Rs1,650, 200 bales, Sultanabad at Rs1,450 and 400 bales of Chundco at Rs1,725.