KARACHI: The cotton market put up a dismal show on Saturday where prices tended to move lower and trading volume also declined owing to slow demand from textile industry and exporters.

Contrary to last three days’ brisk activity, trading volume suddenly slowed considerably, and prices also moved further down. The under tone was easy and outlook, uncertain.

The downward trend in domestic cotton market began in line with New York cotton market last week which was influenced by US Department of Agriculture report of bigger crop in front of falling export orders for US cotton. “I fail to understand as to why policymakers are not taking notice of the falling crop for the last four years,’ observed cotton analyst Naseem Usman.

He added that due to short crop, the country will have to spend huge foreign exchange to import around 4m bales to meet the consumption demand of textile industry.

Slow demand and falling cotton prices resulted into dismal performance and around Rs150 were lost per maund. The Karachi Cotton Association, however, kept its official spot rates pegged at overnight level.

The following deals were reported to have changed hands on the ready counter: 1,200 bales, from Shahdadpur, done at Rs8,175 to Rs8,200; 1,200 bales, Sanghar, at Rs8,175 to Rs8,225; 1,000 bales, Tando Adam, at Rs8,200; 1,200 bales, Mirpurkhas, at Rs8,200; 1,000 bales, Nawabshah, at Rs8,225 to Rs8,250; 1,400 bales, Saleh Pat, at Rs8,300 to Rs8,350; 1,000 bales, Khairpur, at Rs8,275 to Rs8,300; 400 bales, Haroonabad, at Rs8,250; 400 bales, Hasilpur, at Rs8,300; 200 bales, Fazilpur, at Rs8,300 and 400 bales from Burewala were done at Rs8,250.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2018