KARACHI, Dec 12: The cotton market on Friday lacked trading interest as brokers and ginners spent most of the time in exchanging eid greetings.

Physical activity, therefore, failed to get normal because of closure of markets in the Punjab cotton belt and delivery problems, floor brokers said, adding cargo haulers are still demanding higher freight rates.

Analysts said a sharp rebound staged by the New York cotton futures during the last three days was expected to influence local prices on the higher side in coming sessions.

During the pre-Eid holiday session, both the NY cotton contracts were quoted around 40 cents per lb and the post-Eid holiday trading session witnessed a sharp recovery on reports of speculative buying by the local traders and some foreign importers, they added.

While the maturing March contract was quoted higher by 0.79 cents and the ruling May sharply higher by 1.31 cents per lb at 44.45 and 44.79 cents per lb, respectively.

How the local market respond to upward trend on the world markets will be known by the next week after normal trading resumes, they said.

They said the activity is expected to be normal by the next week when the pent-up mill demand comes in a big way in the form of short-covering.

Most of the smaller links of the textile sector are said to be short of their daily intake owing to a long holiday weekend and may resume their covering operations at the current rate, they said.

There was no change in the official spot rates, which were quoted unchanged at Rs2,950 per maund in the absence of mill demand. Mill ready off-take was light amounting to only 400 bales, Sultanabad at Rs2,700 to Rs2,750.