KARACHI: Brisk activity was witnessed on the cotton market on Tuesday as spinners rushed to book quality lint to meet their near-future demand. However, short supply of quality cotton restricted trade volume.
Floor brokers said sentiment was induced by global rising trend in major cotton markets, including the US, China and India. The overnight recovery trend sustained itself on strong demand from spinners.
According to market sources, a sudden turnaround in world cotton markets influenced the domestic market which had been otherwise moving slow. The cotton yarn market also reportedly witnessed higher trading activity.
Lint prices, however, remained steady and there were no signs of upward trend. The ginners, were currently holding around 600,000 bales, but much of these stocks were of low quality lint, brokers said.
Consequently, spinners were facing difficulty in getting quality lint and yet the prices remained firm at overnight level. Another factor which induced sentiment, brokers said, was government decision to fix liquefied natural gas (LNG) quota for the industry in Punjab.
The world cotton markets rose further with the New York cotton closing higher for all the future contracts, except maturing March 2016 contract which recorded modest loss. The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates were unchanged at previous level.
Major deals on ready counter were: 2000 bales from Ghotki (at Rs5,100 a maund), 1,000 bales from Bahawalpur (Rs5,300), 980 bales from Mianwali (Rs5,300 to Rs5,400), 1,200 bales from Hasilpur (Rs5,325), 2,000 bales from Sadiqabad (Rs5,400 to Rs5,500), 2,000 bales from Mohammad Pur Dewan (Rs5,500), 800 bales from Rahimyar Khan (Rs5,500), 1,200 bales from Rajanpur (Rs5,500) and 900 bales from Fazilpur (Rs5,600).
