KARACHI, Aug 13: Cotton prices on Tuesday eased modestly as leading spinners remained busy with the tender work against the TCP sale offer for the spinners and the textile mills.

Stray lots of new crop lint, however, changed hands as those spinners which did not bid for the TCP local sales remained in the market and lifted about 1,000 bales.

The interesting feature was that some of the leading ginners hastened to lower their asking prices fearing a further decline and found ready buyers at the dips.

Unlike the previous couple of sessions, when ginners were not inclined to lower their asking prices, most of them were willing to sell at Rs2,050 on the lower side and Rs2,250 on the higher side as compared to average previous rates of Rs2,300.

“I don’t think reported pick up in arrivals of phutti into the lower Sindh ginneries has unnerved the ginners and they are indulging in hasty selling”, says a leading broker adding “if the TCP lowers its selling rates it will certainly work against the current new crop prices in the absence of strong mill demand”.

The selling in part was also attributed to Wednesday’s holiday on account of Independence Day as some ginners were not inclined to hold long positions despite strong mill demand.

“Whether or not the market will resume its upward drive will be known on Thursday when it reopens after independence holiday”, dealers said and added “the outlook appears to be bullish based on some positive external factors including fresh price flare-up in the New York cotton futures”.

Meanwhile, private sector exporters have registered export contracts for 5,220 bales, with the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) sold to Taiwan, Thailand and some other countries, raising the figure of total sales upto Aug 10, 2002 to 0.288m bales.

Local official spot rates maintained their upward drive and were marked further up by Rs25 per maund, while the New York cotton futures rose by 1.14 and 1.29 cents per lb at 45.43 and 46.92 cents for both the ruling October and the distant December settlements on reports of damage to crop owing to heavy rain and floods in some of the major cotton producing countries.

Ready offtake was modest at 1,000 bales as under: 100 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,050, 500 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs2,200, 100 bales, Sultanabad at Rs2,150 and 100 bales, Pithoro at Rs2,200, 200 bales, Burewala and 100 bales, Chichawatni were sold at Rs2,250.