Rates in ready deals marginally low as market waits for PCGA data
Wait-and-see attitude adopted by the mills and ginners ahead of the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) fortnightly data release on Saturday, dealers said. The official spot rate was unchanged at Rs 5,600, they said. Prices of seedcotton in Sindh were at Rs 1800-2300 and in the Punjab at Rs 2200-2650, they said. In ready dealings, approximately 4000 bales of cotton changed hands at Rs 4050-5700, they added.
According to the market sources volume of business declined due to higher-than-expected phutti arrival figure, the spinners were in a relaxed mood, assuming prices would fall in the coming days. Other analysts said that cotton traders or textile businessmen were worried as instead of providing relief package or facilities to the textile sector to increase exports under the circumstance when exports are coming down of textile products, the government is taking away all incentives from the textile sector, increasing tension among the traders.
The ginners were just hoping that the rates will not decline sharply because of waiver for the EU trade package recently approved by WTO for the country, , experts said. In the meantime, many players are of the opinion that prices may come down as a result of fall in demand because of slow demand by foreign buyers and good production during the current season, experts said. On Thursday US cotton futures ended mildly mixed, as participants kept rolling March positions into later-dated contracts, especially May, now the benchmark.
March cotton on ICE Futures US closed at 92.45 cents per lb, a 0.05 cent decline, and set a small range of 91.80 to 92.80 a lb. March volume came to a paltry 5,685 lots by the close of the exchange session. Small participants were rolling out of long March positions into May, July or December contracts before the February 23 delivery date. New benchmark May futures settled at 93.71 per lb, a 0.23 cent gain. The range ran from 92.65 to 94, also tiny, and set a double bottom with the previous session low.
May's volume was robust at 11,581 lots just after the close. May's open interest is now highest and about double that of March contracts. On Wednesday, open interest in March futures fell by 9,166 lots, while May contracts rose by 3,662 lots, July by 1,246 and December by 725 lots.
The following deals were reported: 400 bales of cotton from Mir Pur Khas sold at Rs 4050, 400 bales of cotton from Khichiwala at Rs 5200, 600 bales of cotton from Haroonabad at Rs 5200, 400 bales of cotton from Lodhran at Rs 5300, 400 bales of cotton from Chistian at Rs 5350, 400 bales of cotton from Dera Ghazi Khan at Rs 5500, 200 bales of cotton from Basti Malook at Rs 5700, 400 bales of cotton from Rahim Yar Khan at Rs 5700, 400 bales of cotton from Mian Wali at Rs 5700.
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The KCA Official Spot Rate for Local Dealings in Pak Rupees
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FOR BASE GRADE 3 STAPLE LENGTH 1-1/32"
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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 16.02.2012
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37.324 Kgs 5,600 130 5,730 5,730 NIL
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Equivalent
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40 Kgs 6,002 130 6,132 6,132 NIL
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