KARACHI, June 14: Cotton prices remained stable on Tuesday as spinners and mills resumed their normal covering operations amid fears of an imminent price flare-up owing to tight supply position.

That is perhaps why fairly active trading was witnessed in the ready section as some of the spinners indulged in big-lot business and tried to grab the entire floating stock offered by the ginners, floor brokers said.

Although unlike the previous sessions, New York cotton futures did not show any major price changes in the absence of strong speculative activity owing to two opinions about the damage to the US standing crop in some areas, sudden pick up in mill demand buoyed ginners, they added.

“As the new crop is bit late in the central Punjab cotton belt and unsold stocks with the ginners have fallen to a modest total, fears of pressure on ready supply and increase in prices seem to have accelerated the mill buying”, some others said.

They said a Punjab ginner from Haroonabad has resumed ginning operations on Sindh phutti (seed cotton) and sold 200 bales at Rs8,600 per maund but other ginners are awaiting the arrivals of phutti from those areas where picking operations are said to have partially resumed.

New York cotton future showed mixed trend and while the ruling July after having received massive battering in the recent past closed 0.92 cents per lb higher at 150.03, the forward October fell by 0.09 cents at 139.58.

Local official rates were again firmly held at the last level of Rs8,500 per maund.

The following are some of the deals reported by the Karachi Brokers Forum on Tuesday: 1,400 bales, Khanpur,100 bales Burewala and 400 bales, Alipur at Rs9,000, 200 bales at Rs8,500, 1,000 bales, mill-to-mill at Rs8,800, 200 bales, each Jehanian, Sahiwal, Rahimyar Khan, Ghotki and 400 bales, Ahmedpur East at Rs8,500, 400 bales, Rahimyar Khan, 200 bales, Mailsi at Rs8,700, and 480 bales, Layyah at Rs8,500 on one-month credit.