KARACHI, Nov 24: Cotton prices on Wednesday maintained their downward drift in sympathy with continued bear onslaught on the New York cotton futures market for the consecutive three sessions, and analysts think further pruning is still overdue.

On the local market some of the deals in the ready section were done Rs600 per maund lower at Rs7,700 and selling pressure continued but there were not many willing buyers, market sources said.

The New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered fresh fall of 8.81 and 6.00 cents at 113.09 and 111.79 cents per lb, heading toward their sustainable level sans speculation of unprecedented magnitude, local brokers said.

“The cotton market is in a terrible confusion and both ginners and growers, who had purchased phutti around Rs4,000 per maund, are now worried over the collapse of the global trade,” said a leading cotton analyst Naseem Usman.

He said the exact market situation would be known during the next couple of sessions after the global prices fall below the 100-cent per lb mark.Official spot rates were, however, held unchanged at Rs8,300 per maund but in the ready section there was panic-selling and spinners and mills lifted all the lots both at the decline and the rise.

In the ready section about 25,000 bales changed hands including some big deals, the following being some of the notable deals:SINDH TYPE: 2,000, 1,400 and 3,000 bales Nawabshah, Shahdadpur and Tando Adam at Rs8,000 to Rs8,300, 1,000 bales, Sanghar at Rs7,800 to Rs8,000, 1,600 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs7,800 to Rs8,200, 1,000 bales, Sanghar at Rs7,800 to Rs8,000, 1,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs8,200 to Rs8,300 and 4,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs8,200 to Rs8,500. PUNJAB

VARIETY: 1,600 bales, Mianwali at Rs8,700, 1,200 bales, Bahawalpur at Rs7,900 to Rs8,500, 2,800 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs8,250 to Rs8,300, 2,200 bales, Chichawatni at Rs8,000 to Rs8,300, 1,000 bales, Garma Raja at Rs8,200, 2,200 bales, Liaquatpur at Rs8,000 to Rs8,200, 1,000 bales, Layyah and 2,000 bales, Sadiqabad at Rs8,000, 2,000 bales, Haroonabad at Rs7,900, 1,200 bales, Arifwala at Rs7,800 and 200 bales each Gaggon and Mandi Sahiwal at Rs7,700.