KARACHI, Jan 11: Spinners and mills on Friday resumed their covering operations after having taken a technical breather and lifted about 40,000 bales as some of the ginners modestly lowered their asking prices.

Bulk of the business in the ready section was done at Rs3,225 to Rs3,400 per maund depending on the quality of lint, some of the fine type were traded as higher as Rs3,400 but average rate was Rs3,250.

Analysts predict prices could ease further lower from the current peak levels during the next couple of sessions in sympathy with world prices, which came in for speculative selling followed by reports of higher production estimates in some of the major cotton producing countries.“Spinners are a bit happy on reports of limit-fall in New York cotton futures, which they said, could have negative impact on the local prices also in the coming sessions”.

New York cotton futures were marked down by 2.06 and 2.07 cents per lb at 66.96 and 68.64 for both the ruling March and the distant May contracts on trade selling and fall in world demand.

Indications are that future prices could ease further during the next week as new year buying by the major consumers failed to show significant increase as leading among them stayed on the sidelines anticipating fresh fall.

Local prices should have eased in sympathy but strong mill buying did not allow them to fall from the current level after Wednesday’s modest decline of Rs25 to Rs50 per maund.

There was, however, no change in the official spot rates, which were held unchanged at Rs3,200 per maund for average quality lint.

Mill ready off-take was on the higher side totalling about 40,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals.

SINDH VARIETY: 1,000 bales, Moro, 400 bales each Shahdadpur and Nawabshah and 200 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs3,250.

PUNJAB RYPE: 8,000 bales, Khanpur at Rs3,300 to Rs3,400, 2,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs3,300 to Rs3,350, 2,000 bales, Noorpur and 1,000 bales, Bahawalpur at Rs3,400, 6,000 bales, Kacha Kho at Rs3,375, 2,00 bales, Liaquatpur at Rs3,300 to Rs3,400, 3,000 bales, Jalalpur at Rs3,275, 1,000 bales each Shujabad and Burewala at Rs3,300, 2,000 bales, Ahmedpur East at Rs3,250, 4,000 bales, Ghazi Ghat at Rs3,350, 1,400 bales, Rajanpur at Rs3,200 and 400 bales, Bakhar at Rs3,225.