Slow volume of business was again witnessed on the cotton market ahead of long weekend due to Eid-ul-Azha holidays, dealers said. The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) official spot rate was unchanged at Rs 5,450, they said.

Prices of seed cotton of low type in Sindh were unchanged at Rs 2000-2400 and rates in Punjab were inert at Rs 2200-2600, they said. In ready dealings about 1500 bales of cotton changed hands between Rs 4,300-5,450, they added.

According to the market sources the mills and spinners were away from the market due to delivery problem and it is now very clear that the normal trading will start after holidays. They also said that some lack of interest among the buyers also seen due to huge unsold stock with the ginneries.

Now the ginners and growers are a little bit worried about the size of phutti arrivals, which are showing significant improvement against the last year, some analysts said. On Friday the US cotton futures finished with moderate gains as investors covered short positions heading into the weekend amid ideas Greece will reach a deal on its debt crisis and MF Global customer accounts will be transferred to add liquidity to cotton trades, brokers said.

All week cotton ended lower, but today it finished stronger, because some guys wanted to take their profits going into the weekend,” said Ron Lawson, managing director of logicadvisors.com. The key December cotton contract on ICE Futures US rose 0.62 cent to end at 98.54 cents per lb, after trading between 99.82 and 98.05 cents.

Total estimated volume on Friday was 20,721 lots, one-third higher than the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data and ICE Futures US data showed.