KARACHI, Dec 9: The cotton market on Friday maintained a steady trend amid an actively traded session as spinners were not inclined to take a technical breather in an apparent bid to contain prices within the current levels.

Another 25,000 bales changed hands mostly at the overnight levels, highest being Rs2,400 per maund for quality lots as the current levels are said to in line with spinners and mills export parity rates, brokers said.

The interesting feature was that for the last couple of sessions ginners did not raise their asking prices beyond Rs2,400 despite near-panic mill buying, they said.

However, a big deal of 4,000 bales from Khanpur ginneries changed hands at Rs2,425 reflecting prices could rise further in the coming session as mills were try to grab the floating stock of fine lots even at the higher rates, they added.

The Spinners are also worried over the rising world prices and fear that local prices may be influenced upward in sympathy with their counterpart elsewhere and despite strong mill buying.

“Higher unsold stock of well over 2m bales seems to be the motivating force behind the ginner selling,” cotton analysts said. “But their unloading shows that they are not losers at this rate.”

“The season is half way,” some others said. ”Ginners are expected to keep with them a sizable quantity of unsold stock to balance their inventory at the end of the season to cover losses if any at the current rates.”

Both the ginners and spinners are happy with the prevailing supply and demand situation and the price status quo, market sources said. “But re-entry of the TCP in the market at this stage could upset the price line,” spinners fear.

However, the active ready off-take suggests that the ginners may dictate their price line in the backdrop of a short crop early next year after the size of the crop is officially determined, they said.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged, while New York cotton futures rose further by 0.38 and 0.15 cents at 52.75 and 53.62 cents per lb for both the maturing December and the forward March contracts, respectively.

Ready business was on the higher side totalling about 25,000 bales as under:

SINDH TYPE: 2,000 bales, K-68 sawgin, Gothi, Dharki and Mirpur Mathelo at Rs2,400.