KARACHI, Jan 25: Cotton market on Thursday maintained firm trend as spinners and mills covered their forward positions against foreign sales around the previous levels. But their major thrust was on the low-mic lots, notably those below Rs2,500 per maund, which they needed to strike judicious balance between the fine and inferior varieties, floor brokers said.

However, as a whole a status quo was maintained in regard to ruling prices, although some of the spinners purchased fine lots from the southern Punjab ginneries at the seasonal high level of Rs2,635 per maund.

Floor brokers said spinners seem to have halted fresh price flare-up after making selective buying and not indulging in speculative covering purchases amid panic created by a short crop.

“The shrinking unsold stocks with ginners, however, could play a significant role in the future price outlook,” they said and added that if import of lint was allowed from India via overland route the prices may freeze around the current levels.According to market sources around 1.6m bales of lint were lying in ginneries as some of the leading mills were making direct purchases from some of the leading ginners in the southern Punjab cotton belt.

Official spot rates were held unchanged around Rs2,550 per maund but in the ready section most of the deals were done according to quality of lint.

New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered modest fall of 0.35 and 0.27 cents at 54.47 and 55.50 cents per lb for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts respectively.

Mills ready off-take was on the higher side totalling about 20,000 bales as under:

SINDH TYPE: 5,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,590-2,600, 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,475-2,510, 400 bales each Dadu and Khipro at Rs2,485 and Rs2,460 respectively.