KARACHI, May 27: Physical trading on the cotton market on Monday was slow as spinners remained selective buyers depending on the quality of lint in trade.

But leading among them apparently holding short positions in superior types were willing to pay more for them. Spinners needs medium staple length lint both for blending purposes and to spin higher counts of cotton yarn against their firm export orders.

An idea of price differential between the fine and inferior lots may well be had from the fact that a big lot of the former was sold at Rs.1,770 and the latter at Rs1,3550 per maund against the official spot rate of Rs1,550.

The TCP also purchased 500 bales at Rs1,575 per maund in export packing and according to its quality standards.

Floor brokers said the great difference between the selling prices reflects both the ginners inability to hold on to their long positions up the end of June as well as the upper hand of buyers in a sellers’ market.

“The near-term price outlook appears a bit bearish as the release of final arrival figure for the fortnight ending May 31, by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) could further push price lower”, they added.

With the TCP still far behind its procurement target of a million bales, and slow buying by the private sector exporters, ginners have to deal with the spinners in the coming weeks.

But what worries ginners is an expected arrival of the new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt where the sowing is completed in late February or early March as it will certainly prompt selling from those ginners who are holding stray stocks.

However, market sources said much will depend on the final size of the unsold stocks lying with the ginners and their quality as well as the spinners intentions to follow the market trend.

It was perhaps in this background that the official rate committee has lowered the official spot rates by Rs25 per maund at Rs1,550 per maund excluding the 15 per cent sales tax.

Ready offtake was modest as till late in the evening 1,800 bales, changed hands as under: 800 bales, Sanghar at Rs1,350 and 1,000 bales, Bagho Bahar at Rs1,770.