Mutton plugging the gap

New season lambs are light and lack consistency in quality down south, an unfortunate side effect of the dry year. With competition fierce for the ideal stock, buyers are being pushed to other ends of the spectrum to restock paddocks or fill kill space. It’s 7 weeks till Christmas and supply is ramping up with […]

Sunshine State shines the brightest

Heavy rain in the southern areas of Queensland sent the restockers on a buying spree along with export buyers at the other end of the scale. The increase in demand and a slight tightening in supply saw modest gains in price for the final selling week of October, with Queensland leading the pack. On the […]

More bang for buyer buck

Sheep packed into loading pen on a farm with dark clouds above

The 38,904 bales offering this week proved too much for the market to absorb without a further price decline. This coupled with a fall in the exchange rate means that for overseas buyers, wools ‘bang for buck’ is now looking as good as it was in May. It was hoped that the softer Australian dollar […]

The answer is blowin’ in the wind

It has been a bumpy week in the wheat market. The events driving the choppy price action have been somewhat conflicting, typical of a confused market. A poor initial crop condition score for the US winter wheat crop initially saw prices jump, only to be hammered lower by a forecast of some much-needed rain in […]

EYCI’s big discount means plenty of room to move

The correlation between the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) and the 90CL US export beef price is primarily driven by our domestic supply and can give us some insight into the ebb and flow of Australian beef prices. While lower US production is also currently playing a role, few comparisons can better highlight the volatility […]

Spring flush on track … for now

It’s that time of year when the spring lambs start to flow. The winter-born lambs are traditionally starting to reach slaughter weights in late October and November, with many coming straight off mum. This year things might pan out a little differently. The ‘spring flush’ plays out differently across the lamb-producing regions of the east […]

Harvest deliveries rising, wheat prices easing

The grain harvest is underway and will move south at pace over the next ten to twelve weeks. Here we look at how the harvest has historically progressed, and how it will start to impact prices if it hasn’t already. Graincorp released their first ‘Harvest Update’ media release last week, and another on Monday, and […]

Wool consumption or production driving changes in supply?

Discussion of wool consumption is something of a chicken and egg conundrum with regards to supply, what comes first, the production or the consumption? With this in mind, let’s take a look at long-term wool consumption. In this analysis consumption data is used where available otherwise production data is used as a proxy for consumption. […]

Buyers place their faith in youth

Angus cattle

Restocker yearling steers performed best this week, improving 12¢ week on week to 358¢/kg lwt and judging from MLA saleyard reports it wasn’t hard to see why. Young cattle in most of NSW and Queensland are coming off winter in good condition and restockers look to be keen to invest. From Charter Towers to Gunnedah, […]

Double digit gains

Sheep transport vehicle

Prices lifted sharply this selling week, with multiple categories making double-digit percentage gains on the week prior. Northern buyers took over their southern counterparts, who had led the market in recent weeks as the more dominant buying group. Rain fell in the Eastern lower third of the nation which helped bring some restockers back to […]

Mixed signals and bad poetry

Australian wheat farm

The wheat market is trying to balance the news coming out of Russia. On one hand, SovEcon has released its outlook for the Russian 2025 season at a relatively modest 80.1mmt, down year on year on year. On the other hand, Russian exports look set to break another export record for October at 4.8mmt, setting […]

Little movement on the wool front this week

The wool market presented a softer tone this week with most Micron price guides easing slightly. Demand was weaker with fewer bales sold alongside a higher pass-in rate compared to last week. >Selective demand by buyers pushed the Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) down 7 cents to 1,131 ¢/kg clean. In US $ terms, the market […]