KARACHI, Feb 11: The cotton market on Wednesday passed through a dull trading session as both the spinners and mills kept to the sidelines apparently awaiting the negative fall-out of limit-losses in New York futures contracts.

The market witnessed shock waves among the ginners, while the spinners were a bit happy as import of lint now could be more competitive if the current speculative selling continues, says a leading broker.

New York cotton futures on Tuesday fell by limit-fall of 3-cents per lb for both the maturing March and the ruling May settlements at 64.96 and 67.27 cents per lb, respectively.

Over the last couple of weeks, both the contracts had fallen by more than 10 cents per lb, making import possible for the local spinners who were worried over the higher local prices owing to a short crop and expensive imports.

But some leading cotton analysts say owing to a crop shortfall, the local prices may not be influenced bearishly from the steep decline in world prices and will be guided by the supply and demand factors.

Textile sources claim they will need about 2m bales to make up the local crop shortfall about half of which has already been imported. However, much will depend on the future world price line on the behaviour of speculators after Pakistani spinners enter the world market with a big shopping list, dealers said.

"There is a virtual turmoil on the world cotton markets after the steep decline in futures, which generally set global price trend," they said and feared spinners may not be able to line up large quantities of lint in a falling market owing to the holding capacity of big speculators.

The next few sessions could be very crucial for the cotton trade as traders on both sides of the fence will try to tilt the price balance in their respective favours, they said.

Most of the ginners, notably those who still hold long unsold positions were a bit jittery over the bearish turn that the world markets had taken but confidently held on to their positions awaiting further developments on the world cotton markets, he said.

Arrival figures of phutti for the month ending Feb 15, is therefore, awaited by both the ginners and the spinners, which could have either-way impact on the ruling prices together with the lower New York cotton futures.

Official spot rates resisted fresh decline in the absence of fresh buying offers from the spinners in anticipation of sympathetic fall in local prices. Ready offtake was light as leading spinners stayed away awaiting ginner reaction to the falling world prices.