Unlike previous weeks, the overall market trend was mixed as prices of essential items fell and rose depending on ready demand and supplies from the local dealers and importers.
But changes in price, mainly on counter of essentials, were orderly as supplies were enough to meet local demand, which kept speculative traders away throughout the last week, dealers said.
Consumers welcomed the fall in prices of some essential items under the lead of wheat and sugar, which had been rising for the last couple of weeks.
They could further ease in coming weeks because of improved supplies, analysts predicted.
Official efforts to lower flour prices from the current levels after having increased the mill quota and setting up of sale outlets for general consumers at subsidised rate, was one of the main reasons behind the current fall in prices, market sources said.
But prices of most items were still ruling on higher side and consumers stayed on the sidelines anticipating fresh fall followed by reports of official raids to contain price hike.
The interesting feature was that there was no immediate bullish impact on the prices owing to across the board increase in prices of petroleum products as they will increase the production costs, which will be finally passed on to the consumers, floor brokers said.
Most of the commodity traders are calculating the impact of POL price hike on commodities and it may be passed on to the retailers possibly by next week, they said.
Leading commodity traders and stockists did not actively take part in the daily trading apparently having an overview of the official steps aimed at containing any future price flare-up before resuming normal trading activity.
As a result, physical activity on most of the essential counters was relatively slow during the week leading to a near-status quo on the essential counters, they added.
Arrivals of some commodities from upcountry markets were said to be well above the average. After last week’s steep fall in all varieties of rice, there was a relative calm on this sector as consumers did not make fresh buying anticipating fresh fall, dealers said.
Activity on the rice sector was, therefore, relatively slow and all varieties were held unchanged at previous levels in the absence of private sector exporters, they said.
The market decline was led by the sugar sector where prices fell sharply ranging from Rs110 to Rs200 on selling by some mills at the lower levels to clear outstanding payments of growers that ran into billions of rupee.
Among other essentials, wheat followed it and was marked down by Rs50 per bag though prices were still keeping on higher side as compared to previous years during the same period, market sources said.
The rice sector did not show much change as prices of fine type basmati including kernel and sela were held unchanged at previous levels.
IRRI-6 came in for stray selling in the absence of demand from exporters.
The IRRI crop from the Sindh rice belt is expected to reach the market by late August or early September, which, dealers said, could push prices further down amid market talk of another bumper crop.
Pluses were generally traded at previous levels under the lead of gram whole and gram dal and masoor but urad was an exception, which rose by Rs250 per bag followed by reports of pressure on ready supplies.
Cereals, on the other hand, showed mixed trend while barley was quoted higher by Rs50 on active mill demand, bajra fell by Rs100 on selling by dealers. Others including guar seed and jowar were traded at the last levels.
Oilseed sector showed bullish trend as prices of cotton and castor seed were quoted higher by Rs150 to Rs200 per 40 kg, and so did cottonseed, which rose by Rs50 to Rs100, rapeseed were again firmly held at previous levels amid slow ready off-take and so did til for want of export demand owing to higher prices.
Oilcakes sector ruled mixed amid two-way activity. While cottonseed cakes fell by Rs40 on selling prompted by steady new crop arrivals, rapeseed cakes stayed unchanged at the previous levels.—M.A.