KARACHI, Dec 28: Cotton market on Thursday passed through another dull trading session as spinners and mills kept to the sidelines and did not make fresh commitments. Some of the brokers, however, reported stray lots, notably from the central Sindh cotton belt did change hands as some of the spinners holding short stock positions made covering purchases at much higher rates, brokers said.

In open trading prices of fine lots were again quoted higher around Rs2,550 per maund by the ginners but spinners appears to be in no obliging mood, they said.

“The downward revision of official spot rates for an average quality reflects that the size of arrivals of phutti for the fortnight ending Dec 31, 2006 may be on the higher side,” market sources said.

The future price outlook is expected to set by the end-year arrival figures, which in turn will give a fair idea of size of the crop as bulk of the phutti has already arrived in the ginneries, they said.

Ginning operations in the upper Sindh and southern Punjab cotton belts are expected to be normal after the eid holidays, which in turn could have positive bearings on the new year prices, they added.

Meanwhile, according to official figures physical shipments of 94,212 bales has been made so far to various countries against the total forward export deals of 0.111m bales.

Official spot rates were again firmly held at the last level of Rs2,500 in the absence of any feedback from the ready market.

New York cotton futures on the other hand failed to sustain the overnight gains and fell by 0.23 and 0.01 cents at 56.38 and 56.99 cents per lb for both the ruling March and forward May contracts respectively.