Mecardo Wool market softer with stronger Au$

The softer wool market trend continued which resulted in one of the lowest weekly clearance rates for some time. The Sydney designated Super-fine sale produced solid support for wool exhibiting good style and measurements, however, the recent trend of lesser wools struggling to find demand continued.

The Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) fell again, down 20ȼ to 1241ȼ/kg, however, a stronger Aussie dollar (+1.30ȼ), caused the EMI when expressed in US$ to increase by 3ȼ to 806ȼ/kg (US).

AWEX reported that although the market suffered losses for a third consecutive week, later sales showed some promise of modest gains. Most affected were the finer types, dragging the EMI to 78 cents (-5.9%) below the same time last year.

The Western market indicator again fell in line with the east coast sales, giving up 13ȼ to finish the week at 1381ȼ/kg.

In the Crossbreds section, 26 MPG fell sharply losing 33ȼ, while the 28 & 30 MPG categories were quoted as largely unchanged.

Cardings were generally softer, holding steady in Sydney, down 8ȼ in Melbourne and back 16ȼ in Fremantle.

Just 31,095 bales eventually found their way to the market, after 9.6% of the original rostered offering was withdrawn prior to sale. With a further 14.1% passed in, 26,696 bales were cleared to the trade. This was the second-lowest weekly sales for this season, and only the fourth time since July that less than 30,000 bales have been sold in the week. This is almost 7,000 below the season’s weekly average clearance of 33,748 bales.

This week on Mecardo, Andrew Woods looked at Crossbred wool prices. This fresh examination of the data confirms the view that crossbred prices are in the doldrums, at depressed levels. For anyone thinking the low percentile rankings is an indicator of higher prices to come, keep in mind that percentiles have no forecasting ability. It would be very good if they did. So, yes, crossbred prices will improve at some stage, but we do not know when.