KARACHI, Aug 17: Cotton market on Wednesday showed firm trend as spinners and mills remained active buyers of the new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt. Floor brokers said all the lots being offered by the ginners were readily purchased by the spinners around the current prices which were in line with their export parity levels.

Most of the deals finalized on Wednesday on ready basis were done between Rs2,225 to Rs2,260 depending on the quality of lint in trade, they said. But the interesting feature was that ginners were not keen to go all-out to sell the ginned lots and were selling selectively in apparent effort to keep prices around the current levels, based on the phutti rates.

Market sources said that growers were also seem to be in no haste to sell their phutti and sending only those truck loads, sold around Rs1,100 per 40 kg, allowing ginners a fair ginning margin.

“Both the rate of lint and phutti are stable as ginners and growers are inclined to hold the price line based on supply and demand factors”, they said adding “unlike the previous seasons, both are not in a mood to dispose of their stocks at the spinners asking prices”.

They attributed the stability in the market to the growers’ price perceptions as unlike the previous seasons growers have learnt the art of securing a fair price for their produce.

However, at this stage we are not inclined to think the market is in the tight grip of the grower as his sphere of activity is limited only to the lower Sindh cotton belt which production figure is not a market factor, they added.

Official spot rates were, therefore, held unchanged at the previous level of Rs2,225 but in the ready section most of the deals were done well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand staged a modest recovery from the recent lower level and were fractionally higher by 0.10 and 0.09 cents at 46.25 and 48.02 cents per lb for both the ruling October and the distant December contracts.

Ready business was light totalling 2,000 bales of new crop, the following being some of the notable deals: 200 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs2,240, 100 at Rs2,250, 200 bales at Rs2,260, 200 bales at Rs2,225 for Aug 25 delivery and 200 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,250.