KARACHI, Nov 22: Prices on the cotton market on Thursday retreated from its current higher levels on panic-selling by the ginners owing to piling up of large stocks in their godowns amid fears of further fall in prices.

Ginners, who have been holding onto their long unsold positions amid hopes that prices may rise further owing to a short crop, resorted to panic-selling as spinners and mills were not in an obliging mood.

“About Rs25 billion are tied to the unsold stocks and ginners have no option but sell them in part to meet their payment obligations to the growers,” a leading cotton analyst Naseem Usman said.

Another contributory bearish factor was larger imports of both medium and long staple lint from various sources including India to make up the local crop shortfall, he added.

According textile sources forward import deals for over a million bales from different supply sources had been made and shipments against which were steadily arriving into their godowns.

Market sources said prices could ease further during the next couple of sessions until the current confusion about the larger unsold stocks and imports was cleared.

Most of the deals in the ready section were done at Rs3,050 on the lower side and Rs3,200 per maund on the higher side depending the quality of lint.

Official spot rates were lowered by Rs75 per maund in line with those at which most of the deals were finalised in physical trading.

New York cotton futures on the other hand again showed fractional plus changes of 0.01 and 0.02 cents per lb at 60.07 and 65.54 cents for both the ruling December and the forward March contracts respectively.

Ready business was maintained on the higher side totalling about 25,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals.

SINDH TYPE: 200 bales, Sultanabad at Rs3,050, 400 bales, Tando Adam at Rs3,100, 800 bales, Khipro, at Rs3,100 to Rs3,180, 1,000 bales Khairpur at Rs3,150 and 1,000 bales, Upper Sindh at Rs3,200.