KARACHI, Jan 20: Firm trend was witnessed on the cotton market on Friday as some of the spinners covered positions after Thursday’s relative lull and lifted stray lots at the higher prices.

Floor brokers said that mills seemed to have assessed the possible positive fallout of the latest arrival figures of phutti on the future price outlook and re-entered the market to make fresh commitments.

Ginners, notably those holding larger unsold stocks, were also well aware of the developing situation on the cotton front and held onto their positions anticipating further increase in prices.

“Supply and demand factors are expected to dominate the future cotton trading but indications are that spinners may be at the receiving end at the fag-end of the season”, brokers said.

Already, some leading ginners from the southern Punjab cotton belt have raised their asking prices and are not inclined to sell fine lots below Rs2,500 per maund, they said.

As a matter of fact some of the leading mills and spinners, having confirmed export orders for the quarter ending March 31, 2006 purchased a number of lots around Rs2,500 per maund, they added.

Market sources said that despite modest pruning in New York cotton futures during the last couple of sessions, prices were still higher and were said to be well above the import parity level of spinners.

But some others said that both the local production and a buffer stock of half a million bales lying with the TCP was expected to meet mill demand, although it could not be possibly said about the price trend during the next couple of weeks, they added.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the previous level but in physical trading some of the fine lots were traded higher.

Owing to higher asking prices by the ginners, ready business remained light totalling about 7,000 bales, mainly from the Punjab cotton belt.