AUSTRALIA’S wool auction market lifted this week to break a downward spiral, sparking more interest from growers to sell.

The Australian Wool Exchange said the market managed to halt its downward run, driven by higher prices for Merino fleece types, in an offering of 33,293 bales, 114 bales more than the previous week.

“This moderate selection received strong support from a wide range of buyers, helping to push prices continually higher.

“On the first day of selling, it was quickly apparent that buyer sentiment was high, resulting in spirited bidding across almost all Merino fleece types and descriptions,” AWEX said.

“By the end of the day, the individual Micron Price Guides (MPGs) for Merino fleece had added between 4 and 41 cents.

“Driven by these increases, after eight consecutive selling days of losses, the AWEX Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) finally recorded a positive movement of 7 cents for the day,” AWEX said.

“The second day opened in the east to a very similar tone, which continued unabated all the way to the closing lot in the west, resulting in prices slowly but noticeably rising as the sale progressed.”

By day’s end, the Merino fleece MPGs had risen again, this time between 6 and 42 cents and driven by increases in these MPGs, the EMI added a further 17 cents, AWEX said.

“The EMI closed the week at 1256 cents/kg clean, an overall increase of 24 cents.

“This was the first weekly increase in the EMI in just over a month.”

AWEX said currency movement had the opposite effect of what occurred in the previous series.

“A weakening Australian dollar (the AUD fell by 1.27 cents compared to the USD since last week’s close) meant that when viewed in USD terms there was no movement in the EMI, which closed unchanged.”

AWEX said the higher prices on offer have enticed more sellers to the market, pushing up next week’s offering. Currently, there is expected to be 38,295 bales on offer in Melbourne, Fremantle and Sydney, which is a designated superfine sale.

Click here to see the latest AWEX Micron Price Guides.

Source – AWEX.