KARACHI, July 6: Physical trading on the cotton market remained at low ebb on Wednesday, but unconfirmed reports said some of local spinners lifted stray lots from upper Sindh ginners.

The spinners said the selling rates of the TCP had virtually set an unofficial reference price for fine varieties and some of the ginners from the upper Sindh cotton belt tried to shed their extra weight.

Although New York cotton futures are surging and have consolidated well above the 50 cents per lb mark, the local ginners, who still hold an unsold stock of about 50,000 bales, are active sellers at around Rs2,400 or slightly below this level depending the quality of lint, they said.

But there is no let-up in mill buying as during the current week they have purchased well over 0.1m bales of lint and are ready to buy more on the TCP auction, brokers said.

“After having purchased about 12m bales from the ginners from the current crop, the spinners are close to hit a half-million mark from the TCP, which reflects that consumption needs have surpassed all previous records,” they said.

The spinners may have good reasons to build up long positions at the current levels, which are billed as most competitive keeping in view the rising world prices but far exceed their actual annual consumption needs, they adds.

Based on their current buying figures, both from the ginners and the TCP, their tally comes to about 1.7m bales and indications are that the spinners will sell the surplus to other mills at higher rates.

“Cotton trade is steadily passing into the hands of spinners as other primary commodities do, as leading among them are out to grab the floating stock of lint for no specific reasons, analysts said.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the cotton belt indicate that the second spell of monsoon rain in the entire cotton belt is beneficial for the steady growth of tender plant, followed by warm weather that kills pests and insects.

Official spot rates, therefore, were firmly held at the last level at Rs2,300 per maund, but the TCP selling price is much higher than it.