KARACHI: Slow trading was witnessed on the cotton market on Monday as buyers and sellers were conspicuous the by their absence. The undertone, however, was steady.

Barring small lot deals coming from some needy spinners, the market lacked trading activity. The phutti (seed-cotton) arrivals also slowed down as the current cotton season is at its fag end, the brokers said.

Meanwhile, spinners are eagerly waiting for statutory release order (SRO) that will allow the waiver on cotton imports from duty and sales tax as per the decision of the economic coordination committee (ECC).

Cotton analysts believe that around 125,000 more bales would arrive from cotton fields while stocks held by ginners are now depleting fast, owing to some demand coming from small spinners.

On the global front, Indian cotton moved higher between Rs100-400 per candy while New York and Chinese markets showed mixed to easy trends.

The Karachi Cotton Asso­ciation spot rates remained firm at Rs8,700 per maund.

Trading on ready counter was extremely slow and listless where only two transactions were reported to have changed hands: 800 bales from Rahimyar Khan were done at Rs8,700 and 800 bales from Khanpur, at Rs8,850.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2019