Wool Report By Moses And Son

The AWEX EMI closed on 1407c - up 15c at auction sales in Australia this week. The 42,794 bales offered was met with buoyant competition from a wide range of local and indent exporters with Tuesday’s EMI just maintaining within 1c.

With Australia Day on Wednesday, the auctions resumed on Thursday with better prices paid across the majority of wool categories.

Weekly clearances achieved a healthy 91.3% with Northern market crossbreds passing in 16% despite the slightly better weekly market performance.

Merino Fleece opened as it closed last week with positive price results on the <18μ MPGs. 18.5μ and coarser opened 5-25c cheaper by the end of Tuesday’s market.

Thursday saw a continuation of the superfine and fine MPG’s however the 18.5 and coarser MPG’s were generally 5-15 dearer with the exception of the 19.5 MPG which only recovered 20c of the 25c loss it posted on Tuesday.

The focus once again was on Non Mulesed Integrity scheme Certified clips which seem to be supported by a new group of exporters as well as the usual suspects.

Auction competition on these certified lots can only be good giving transparency and market reporting signals to a wider range of customers.

Discounts for length and VM seemed to decrease again as a wider range of inquiry came from Italy & India early in the week and China entered the arena on Thursday adding a definite feeling that confidence is slowly returning to the combing wool market.

Merino Skirtings opened fully firm with noticeable rises in the low VM lots (<3%) and tracked along with their fleece counterparts. A gradual increase in confidence on merino skirtings has been a feature over the last 3 months.

Crossbreds held last week’s levels on the opening day and with some assistance from the favourable currency exchange and were able to close in sellers favour on Thursday with modest rises of 2-13c measured.

Oddments Locks, Crutchings were 15-25c dearer whilst stains added 30-40c to last week’s prices.

Crossbred oddments continued to be divided by micron, with the finer oddments slowly gaining momentum whilst the coarser remaining at on or near record low prices.

41,790 bales are scheduled to be offered in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle on Wednesday and Thursday next week with Chinese New Year celebrations scheduled for Tuesday the 1st of February.

My expectations for next week’s price levels based on today’s market intelligence should produce opening levels maintained if not slightly dearer for merino combing wools as well as Merino cardings whilst Crossbreds may continue to be irregular.

- Marty Moses

• Topics:

• Wool
• Farming
• Agriculture