KARACHI, Feb 21: Physical activity on the cotton market on Thursday showed a modest rise as a section of spinners resumed their normal covering operations after about a week’s absence.However, bulk of the support was confined to some inferior quality lots, needed by them for blending purposes with fine type and staple fibre to produce blended cloth and yarn, floor brokers said.

But there was a wide gap of Rs225 per maund in the selling prices of inferior and fine lots, the lowest being Rs3,075 and the highest Rs3,300, they said, adding: “some of the ginners still holding odd lots hoping further increase in prices sold them at the offered prices.”

Although leading ginners still hold an unsold stock of about 1.5m bales, they are said to be not inclined to hold long unsold positions as hopes of an expected price flare-up are fading out by each session in the absence of buyers.

“Higher import commitments, against which about 1.4m bales had already arrived in the godowns of spinners and mills seems to have taken steam out of the market at least for the near-term,” market sources said.

But some others said the recent pick up in world prices to well over 72 cents per lb could have sympathetic bullish impact on the local prices in the coming sessions.

The resumption of local buying by some of the spinners indicates that local ruling prices have now become competitive in the backdrop of grand rebound staged by the New York cotton futures.

Both the matured March and the ruling May contracts on Thursday were quoted at 70.23 and 72.27, respectively, up by 0.79 and 0.47 cents per lb.

Local official spot rates on the other hand were again held unchanged at Rs3,100 per maund, although most of the deals were done in line with the quality premiums.

Mill ready off-take showed signs of revival as about 5,000 bales changed hands as under: 2,000 bales, Bhan Saeedabad at Rs3,075, 500 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs3,300, 1,000 bales, D.G. Khan at Rs3,125 and 1,000 bales, Rajanpur at Rs3,100 to Rs3,125.