The wool market had an overall stronger week, although for a change of sentiment the drivers of the market were the broader merino types and the cardings section. While Sydney fine wool prices lifted, the larger offering in Melbourne saw the fine types all lose ground resulting in a drag on the overall market.
The Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) gained 5ȼ for the week to close at 1,324ȼ. The Australian dollar fell by almost 1 cent with the US/Au rate quoted at US$0.727, which pushed the EMI in US dollar terms down again, this week by 9ȼ to settle at 962ȼ.
In a change of recent results, the Melbourne 17 MPG fell 34ȼ, while the 19.5 MPG lifted 15ȼ and the 21 MPG gained 19ȼ.
Fremantle posted a positive result across the board with all MPG’s improving, ranging from a +10 to +19 cents movement on the day. The Western Market Indicator (WMI) lifted 15ȼ cents to 1393ȼ. Fremantle sold 5,950 of the 6,685 bales offered with 11.0% of offered bales passed in.
A increased national offering came forward this week with 41,548 bales offered, almost 4,000 more than last week. With the stronger market the national pass-in rate fell to 9.3%, which resulted in 37,697 bales sold, which was 5,400 more than last week.
The crossbred indicators remained steady on last week’s levels, with the 26 MPG unchanged while the 28 & 30 MPG gave up 5ȼ & 8ȼ respectively.
Cardings were the strongest performing sector, gains in locks, stains & crutchings prices pushed the regional cardings indicators all higher, with Fremantle up 10ȼ, while Melbourne was the strongest lifting 26ȼ and Sydney improved by 4ȼ.
AWEX reported a significant amount of certified specialty non-mulesed accredited bales were offered on the final day of selling in Melbourne, with premiums between 100 & 350 cents applied.
With this in mind, on Mecardo this week (view article here), Andrew Woods again looked at the prices in the market for wool accredited by the Responsible Wool Standards (RWS). It appears that RWS pricing is fairly straight forward, add AUD250-350 cents per clean kg for the straight merino fleece lots. The level of the premium presumably will be sensitive to changes in supply, with Australian volumes still extremely low overall. There is plenty of upside for Australian wool with regards to RWS and premiums of 250-350 cents will attract more volume.
The week ahead….
Next week another large offering is listed for sale in Fremantle, Melbourne & Sydney with all centres selling on Tuesday & Wednesday, with 41,363 bales currently rostered.
Click on graph to expand
Click on graph to expand
Click on graph to expand
Data sources: AWEX, AWI, Mecardo
