KARACHI, Sept 27: Physical trading on the cotton market slightly slowed down on Friday as ginners further raised their asking prices followed by reports of holding back of phutti stocks by the growers.

The ready business was also affected partly because of a half trading session owing to Friday and partly to the absence of leading spinners who were not inclined to bid at the higher levels.

It was a fairly hectic week as during the last four sessions, both spinners and mills made an extensive buying below the Rs.2,000 per maund level and once ginners raised their selling prices spinners withdrew to the sidelines though temporarily.

“A battle of wits is going on for the last couple of sessions between the ginners and the spinners over divergent view of competitive prices in line with the export parity level,” one broker said adding “but so far the latter appear to be in commanding position.”

Spinners and mills are active buyers below the Rs.2,000 per maund level and lift all the floating stock offered up to Rs.1,975 per maund or slightly above this level but as ginners raise their asking prices to Rs.2,000, ready offtake turn dull.

The price status quo could be maintained till the middle of the next month and after that supply and demand factors supported by the size of the crop will set the market trend, dealers said.

The interesting feature was that the cotton traders including ginners, growers and spinners are not inclined to buy the idea of any major damage to the standing crop as being projected by some official agencies and if that has been correct it should have followed by an immediate price flare-up, they added.

According to the private surveys of ginners and spinners the crop is in line with the initial estimate, although there are micronaire problems in some parts of the central Punjab cotton belt.

On the export front, private sector exporters registered export contracts with the Export Promotion Bureau on Sept 26, for 749 bales and TCP for 775 bales on the same day.

Official spot rates were raised by Rs.20 per maund in line with the those in the ready section but on the other hand New York cotton futures fell fractionally by 0.10 and 0.1 cent per lb for both the ruling October and the forward December settlements at 41.70 and 43.78 cents per lb respectively.

Ready offtake was modest as till late in the evening about 3,000 bales business was reported but unlike the previous sessions bulk of it was confined to the Punjab variety as under:

SINDH VARIETY: 800 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs.1,975.