KARACHI, Sept 9: Active trading was witnessed on the cotton market for the second consecutive day on Thursday as mills and spinners were not inclined to take even a technical breather.

Unlike the previous sessions, big lot business in Sindh variety dominated the trading as ginners continued to unload their long positions owing to an uncertain future price outlook, dealers said.

Spinners and mills were also in no mood to take even the calculated risks and lifted all the lots including big ones at an average rate of Rs2,300 per maund, which apparently fall in line with the parity levels of the both, they said.

Floor brokers said fresh increase in New York cotton futures was apparently discounted as local buying and selling operations were essentially guided by the supply and demand factors.

After having suffered huge losses during the last season on account of lint import at the higher rates, spinners and mills are not inclined to go for import at this stage and are out to grab the floating stock of the local stuff at the current levels, they said.

New York cotton futures on Wednesday ended further higher by 0.80 and 0.37 cents at 53.00 and 53.12 cents per lb for both the ruling October and the distant December settlements.

The spread of only 0.12 cents between the two contracts reflects that near-term price outlook for the world cotton prices appears a bit bullish at least till December this year and what after that is anybody's guess and will largely depend on the actual production figures of Pakistan, India and China, some others said.

Official spot rates were upped by Rs25 to Rs2,275 but in the ready section most of the deals were done well above them. Ready off-take was active as till late in the evening about 10,000 bales changed hands, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH VARIETY: 800 bales, Jhole at Rs2,300 to Rs2,310, 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,305 to Rs2,325, 1,400 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,325, 1,000 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,325, 200 bales, Sultanabad at Rs2,300, 1,000 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,305 to Rs2,325 and 2,000 bales from other stations at the same rate.