KARACHI, March 12: Cotton market on Tuesday remained in the tight grip of spinners who again indulged in panic buying and lifted all the lots offered by the ginners irrespective of asking prices.

Big-lot business was again seen as leading spinner groups were not inclined to give a chance to the TCP and the exporters to cover their positions. Some of the deals were finalized Rs25 higher at Rs1,775 per maund as compared to overnight’s Rs1,750, signalling a progressive rise in prices in due course.

“There appears to be mad rush for lint from the spinners”, says a broker “but the interesting feature of the big lot business is that ginners are not inclined to think beyond the Rs1,750 level and oblige the spinners.

Having received massive battering during the last couple of weeks owing to the absence of buying support from any quarter, ginners also are in a hurry to clear their long unsold positions at the bid prices.

“About Rs16 billion are tied to the unsold stocks and we want to get out of this situation”, says a prominent ginner adding “a lot of overdue payments to the growers have limited our manoeuvring capacity”.

However, an interesting situation is developing on the cotton front at least for the near-term and the ginners may be the chief beneficiaries, dealers said.

But the general perception is that a modest show of a strong holding capacity by the ginners could send a message among the spinners that the lint is being a bit expensive.

Market sources say there may not be a big change in the outlook of textiles exports, things are improving and chances are that the last quarter of the current fiscal may be much better for the spinners.

Ginners are also expected to get still better prices for the lint in response to increase in world prices and rising demand both for the made-ups and the lint cotton, they added.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the upper Sindh and southern Punjab cotton belt indicate that most of the ginners are close to complete ginning operations for the current season and many smaller among them have already shut their business.

Ready offtake was on the higher side as a group of leading spinners continued to build-up long positions at the current levels. As a result, another 15,000 bales changed hands as under:

SINDH TYPE: 2,000 bales, Nawabshah at Rs1,675, 1,200 bales at Rs1,630, 1,200 bales, Daultpur at Rs1,685 and 600 bales, Kot Lalu at Rs1,685.