Flock of merino sheep close up

There were minor movements in the EMI as the wool market returned to sales in all centres. With shearing continuing during the wool market winter recess, this week is traditionally one of the more extensive offerings for the season.

The AWEX Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) dropped by 3¢ for the series, closing at 1,176¢/kg. With significant movement in exchange rates over the break, the EMI when expressed in US¢ dropped by 22 US¢, a 2.8% reduction.  The AWEX Western Market Indicator (WMI) lost 7¢ to finish at 1332¢/kg.

AWEX report that the market movements were varied across different sectors, different types and different microns. In the merino fleece types the individual Micron Price Guides (MPGs) ranged between plus 42¢ (17 micron in the North) through to minus 45¢ (19 micron in the West).

The crossbred market was mainly positive. The 37¢ (6.5%) increase in the Southern 26 micron MPG was a market highlight, only the 32 micron 10¢ loss in the same region preventing an across-the-board crossbred increase.

The carding market also recorded an overall gain, the three Merino Carding indicators (MC) rose by an average of 10.3¢ with Fremantle the stand-out with a 24¢ lift.

The weeks offering saw 49,029 bales available to the trade. This was 6,334 less than the 55,363 on offer in Week 6 last year. However, this week saw about 13k bales more on offer compared to the final sale before the break. Pass-in rates were up slightly to 9.0%.  This resulted in 44,606 sold nationally, 11,000 more than the last sale this week and roughly 8,000 more than last season’s weekly average.  

This week on Mecardo, Andrew Woods takes a look at Merino wool quality outlook, specifically fibre diameter and VM. (read here).  The expected seasonal impact will see a move finer in the Merino fibre diameter. This means less broad Merino, more fine Merino and a lower clean fleece weight overall.  VM levels remain at very high levels for adult merino fleece, although the seasonal pattern should start to alleviate this issue by September.

Next week

Next week is another reasonably large offering as wool accumulated during the break makes its way to auction. There are expected to be 46,874 bales on offer next week across Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.

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Data sources: AWEX, AWI, Mecardo

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