Price war continues on cotton market
By Our Staff Reporter
2012-02-03
KARACHI, Feb 2: Trading activity on the cotton market slowed down significantly on Thursday as ginners and spinners remained locked in a price war.
Market sources said reports of duty-free export of textile items to the European Union boosted the moral of stakeholders in their own interpretation of the relief amid hopes of increased business and the victim was mill ready off-take.
This is a massive relief (75 items mostly textiles) and could change the entire future export outlook giving tremendous boost to the economy, they added.
`Ginners think a considerable rise in ready mill intake to meet the export market demand will push lint prices higher from the current levels`, they said and added that spinners and mills say higher exports at better prices would add to their paying capacity to meet the fresh increase in lint demand.
They said after more details about tax relief were known the cotton prices could react bullishly in the coming sessions.
However, the earlier reac-tion of the market was a bit cautious and the stakeholders kept to the sidelines most of the time apparently seeking more details about the concessions.
As a result the ready business shrank to a modest level as both ginners and spinners adhered to the sidelines most of the time watching each other`s moves.
Official spot rates were, therefore, held unchanged at the overnight level of Rs5,700 but in the ready section most of the deals were qualitybased.
The New York cotton futures on the other hand resisted fresh fall and were quoted higher by 0.14 and 0.28 cents at 93.39 and 94.79cents per Ib for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts respectively.
The following are some of the deals reported by the Karachi Brokers Forum on Thursday.
SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Gohtki at Rs5,675 to Rs5,700, 400 bales each Mirpurkhas and Shahdadpur at Rs4,400.
BALOCHISTAN TYPE: 400 bales, Khuzdar at Rs5,900.
PUNJAB VARIETY: 600 bales, Alipur at Rs6,000, 1,000 bales, Mianwali at Rs5,800 to Rs6,000, 1,000 bales each Sadiqabad and Rahimyar Khan at Rs5,800, 2,000 bales, Hasilpur at Rs5,500, 1,000 bales, Haroonabad at Rs5,350 to Rs5,400 and 400 bales, Fagirwali at Rs5,300.