Cotton market: Sellers conspicuous by their absence

Sellers conspicuous by their absence on the cotton market on Wednesday, dealers said. The official spot rate after maintaining a stable trend, tended lower, shedding Rs 100 to Rs 7,500, they added. In ready session, over 3,000 bales of cotton changed hands between 6800-7500, they said. In both Sindh and the Punjab, seed cotton prices were same at Rs 2800 and Rs 3500, they said.
Market sources said that many participants were not interested in fresh buying, particularly the ginners were refraining from new deals ahead of the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) fortnightly reports, expected shortly. Cotton Analyst, Naseem Usman attributed the decline in the volume of business to delay in issuance of Statuary Release Orders (SRO) by the government, PCGA report and partly because of falling trend in the international market.
Other experts observed that mills perplexed over the non-implementations, which may hurt the business sentiment in the coming days. Adds Reuters: ICE cotton fell on Tuesday, as investors booked profits after prices surged to a near four-year high in the previous session.
The most active ICE cotton contract for March expiry settled down 0.25 cent, or 0.31 percent, at 81.43 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 80.62 and 82.05 cents a lb. Cotton futures hit their highest point since March 2014 at 84.65 cents on Friday before settling lower on profit-taking and amid a slightly bearish supply-demand report from the US government.
Total futures market volume fell by 39,577 to 33,486 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 45 to 299,580 contracts in the previous session. The following deals reported: 1000 bales of cotton from Haroonabad sold at Rs 6800, 400 bales from Fort Abbas at Rs 6750, 600 bales from Rahim Yar Khan at Rs 7500 and same figure from Liquatpur at the same rate, they said.

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The KCA Official Spot Rate for Local Dealings in Pakistan Rupees

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FOR BASE GRADE 3 STAPLE LENGTH 1-1/16"

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                                    MICRONAIRE VALUE BETWEEN 3.8 TO 4.9 NCL

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Rate              Ex-Gin   Upcountry   Spot Rate    Spot Rate    Difference

                    For      Price     Ex-Karachi  Ex. KHI. As   Ex-Karachi

                                                  on 16.01.2018

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37.324 kg         7,500       145         7,645        7,745        - 100/-

Equivalent

40 kgs            8,038       155         8,193        8,300        - 107/-

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