A little give and take
The shaky wool market opened this week lacking power. With a decent offering, the first day of sale saw instant corrections across the board, only to show signs of a resurgence at the days’ end. This momentum carried through to a stronger market on Thursday, however it wasn’t enough for the market indicators to avoid overall declines on the week.
The Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) lost 26cents (after gaining 32 cents last week), to close at 1517cents. The Au$ also rose to US $0.678. This buffered some of the fall in the EMI in US$, dropping 12 cents to end the week at 1,030 cents.
The Fremantle sales proved weaker than its eastern counterparts on day one, falling 42 cents before regaining some ground on the second day of sale. The Western Market Indicator lost 32 cents on the week to close at 1,621 cents. AWEX reported that despite the price rises on day two, there were still many unwilling sellers, resulting in nearly 20% of the fleece passed in.
There was a much higher offering of 35,356 bales this week, an extra 7,207 bales on last week’s volumes. The National Pass-in (PI) rate was 14.6%, which meant 30,189 bales were cleared to the trade. This is the first week since March that we have seen the number of bales sold actually higher than the corresponding week last season. Of course, the supply shortfall is still significant, with 115,415 fewer bales sold so far this season compared to the same period last year. This equates to an average weekly gap of 8,878 bales.
The dollar value for the week was $52.97 million, for a combined value so far this season of $565.68 million, and a bale average value $1,732.
Crossbred were the worst performing category this week, losing 10 to 55 cents across the microns. After last week’s losses, the Cardings Indicators again held their ground with just a 5 cent average fall.
The week ahead
A smaller offering is rostered for sale next week of just 32,970 bales. Sydney is down to just one day of sale on Wednesday, while Melbourne and Fremantle are selling both Wednesday and Thursday.
Let’s hope the positive tone moving through the market at the end of this week carries through.
