Moderate trading was seen on the cotton market on Friday as most of ginners raised asking prices but the mills showed slight resistance in an effort to keep prices at a realistic level, dealers said. The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) official spot rate was left unchanged at Rs 6200, they said.

In the ready business nearly 7000 bales of cotton changed hands between Rs 6000-6400, they said. Phutti prices in Sindh shed Rs 50 were at Rs 2600-2650 and in Punjab, the rates were at Rs 2750-2850, they said. According to the market sources phutti supply is tight due to rains in cotton belt it is expected that the rains may stop and supply of phutti may ease in couple of sessions or next week.

The heavy rains in Sindh and Punjab hampered the supply of seedcotton, on the other hand, the mills were reluctant in finalising deals due to moist cotton and waiting for sunny weather, they said. They said as a result there is shortage of ginned cotton. In the meantime, some reports reaching the market indicated that the recent rains will help in improvement of size and quality of cotton because warm temperature and rains with the gap of short period are good for the standing crop, they said.

On Thursday the NY cotton futures ended higher on modest investor buying on a weaker dollar as the market again kept an eye on tight deliverable supplies in the spot October contract, brokers said. The December cotton contract rose 0.60 cent to close at 76.91 cents per lb, dealing from 76.25 to 77.44 cents.

It was the highest close for the second position contract since July 8, according to Thomson Reuters data. Spot October added 0.11 cent to finish at 80.68 cents. October has a 3.77-cent premium over key December, down from the previous session's premium of 4.26 cents. Volume traded in the December contract stood at 7,954 lots at 2:31 pm EDT (1831 GMT).

The following deals were reported: 500 bales of cotton from Sanghar sold at Rs 6000, 200 bales of cotton from Tando Adam at Rs 6000, 400 bales from Shahdad Pur sold at Rs 6000-6050, 600 bales from Arifwala at Rs 6350-6400, 200 bales from Vehari at Rs 6350, 600 bales from Haroonabad at Rs 6350-6375, 1400 bales from Burewala at Rs 6400, 1000 bales from Sahiwal at Rs 6400, 400 bales from Hasil Pur at Rs 6400, 200 bales from Mamoon Kanjan at Rs 6400, 400 bales from Samandari at Rs 6400, 200 bales from Khanewal at Rs 6400, 200 bales from Depal Pur at Rs 6400 and 300 bales from Bahawal Nagar at Rs 6350-6400.