RENEWED interest European and India wool buyers tempered the fall in the Australian auction market this week.

The Australian Wool Exchange said the market retracted this week, adding further losses to those seen in the previous auction series.

Brokers offered 28,392 bales nationally, 4906 more than last week, and the passed-in rate increased 2 percent to 11.9pc.

“So far this season there has been a total of amount of 252,452 bales offered, this is 23,776 fewer bales than the previous season, a reduction of 8.6pc,” AWEX said.

On the opening day in the eastern markets, the Merino fleece Micron Price Guide movements ranged between plus 21 and minus 34 cents, AWEX said.

“The strongest performers were 18 and 18.5 (micron fleece) in the north, driven by strong demand in wool possessing favourable additional measurement results.

“The benchmark Eastern Market Indicator dropped 9 cents for the day.”

In Fremantle, AWEX said the losses were larger as the western region did not suffer the falls experienced in the Eastern centres on Wednesday last week.

“Here the MPG movements ranged between -29 and -70 cents, and the western indicator dropped by 45 cents.

“On the second day, again only Sydney and Melbourne were in operation and prices continued to fall, albeit at a slower rate than on the previous day,” AWEX said.

“By the end of the day, the Merino fleece MPGs had dropped by between 3 and 41 cents, and there were no positive movements recorded.

“The EMI closed the day 12 cents lower.”

AWEX said the EMI finished the series on 1857 cents/kg clean, a weekly fall of 21 cents.

“Currency has again played a part in the market movements; the Australian dollar has lost one full cent compared to the US dollar since the last series.

“When viewed in USD terms the losses were more significant.”

AWEX said the EMI lost US34 cents for the series, closing the week at US1323 cents/kg clean.

Next week’s offering is forecast to be of a similar size. There is currently expected to be 28,286 bales on offer nationally.

Low supply a factor – AWI

Australian Wool Innovation said the wool market experienced a more cautious tone this week, with the larger national offering meeting increasingly selective demand ahead of the Nanjing Wool Market Conference.

AWI said while Chinese buyers approached this week with more caution, renewed appetite for inventory replacement from European and Indian mills tempered further price weakening.

“The low greasy wool supply forecast remains a key factor with the season-to-date offerings 8.6pc below last year at 252,452 bales.

“Following this week’s decline, the EMI remains 513 cents, or 38.2pc, above where it was 12 months ago.”

Trade attention now turns to the 37th Nanjing Wool Market Conference that started today, AWI said.

Sources – AWEX, AWI.