THE WHOLESALE Karachi commodity markets showed easy trend during the last week as the prices of essential items generally fell amid active trading.

But there was no pre-election panic buying from any quarter as most price changes were orderly and reflected no pressure on the supplies, notably on essential counters.

There were also no reports of the holding back of stocks by the leading stockists and the brokerage houses to push the prices of essential items higher during the pre-election sessions, as supplies matched ready demand almost in each session.

But there were reports of hasty selling by some of the leading brokerage houses at the fag-end of the week, notably in pulses sector where prices generally fell.

Arrivals of most of the commodities, including raw materials from the upcountry trading centres were normal, which in turn did not allow speculative price flare-up on any of the essential counters.

The satisfying feature was that the leading importers of pulses were active sellers below previous week’s levels, which in turn kept ready supplies smooth and at around previous levels.

Dealers said unlike the previous couple of weeks, traders from the upcountry markets remained active buyers of pulses and some other commodities imported from various countries by the Karachi-based importers.

However, some of the major export items showed modest increase partly because of the short supply and partly due to active export enquiries from the traditional importers.

Rice and guar were leading among them, which were in active demand for the last couple of weeks and in the process, prices of the both rose sharply under the lead of the latter, which was being quoted at 10-year highs followed by the reports of short crop.

The new rice crop from the Sindh rice belt was expected to arrive during the next couple of sessions, which in turn would push the prices lower from the current highs.

As a result, Irri-6 and Irri-9, came in for active support and posted gains ranging from Rs15 to 25, while broken basmati rose by Rs25 to 30 per bag of 100kg.

Fine varieties including sela and kernal on the other hand remained under pressure, followed by the reports of slackened export demand and finished with losses of Rs100 each.

Pulses followed them as the leading importers liquidated long positions ahead of the national elections amid falling local demand.

While gram whole and gram dal came in for active selling followed by the reports of steady imports and suffered fall ranging from Rs50 to 75 followed by beetle, urad and moong, which ended lower by Rs25 to 100 per bag of 100kg.

Wheat on the hand showed a fractional rise of Rs5, while sugar fell by Rs25 to 35 per 40kg despite the reports of resumption of new crushing season quite late.

Oversupply caused by the larger unsold stock of 0.775 million tonnes was said to be the major bearish factor.

Guar also came in for stray support followed by the reports of fall in arrivals from the upcountry market and rose by Rs100 per bag after remaining under pressure last week.

Cereals again showed mixed trend. While bajra came in for selling and fell by Rs25, jowar was marked up by Rs15 to 20, with maize remaining pegged at the last close.

Oilseed sector maintained firm trend as the prices of rapeseed further rose by Rs15 to 50 per 40kg followed by the reports of short supply.

Castorseed and til attracted modest support. While the former was held unchanged, the latter posted fresh good gains ranging from Rs25 to 40 on active buying by the exporters.

Oilcakes came in for renewed support for rapeseed cakes, while the cottonseed cakes suffered a modest decline of Rs5 on selling prompted by steady arrivals of new crop.—M.A