NON-MULESED wool again outperformed the generally falling Australian wool market this week, with premiums as high as 200c/kg clean for selected lots.

AWEX senior market analyst Lionel Plunkett said the Australian wool market continued its decline this week, but the losses were not as extreme as the previous two sale series.

Mr Plunkett said non-mulesed wool continued to attract strong competition during the sale, maintaining healthy premiums over similarly-specified wool and also recorded little change.

Generally, buyers continued to look for value in the market and their major focus was on the better style lots with good additional measurements, he said. As a result these lots recorded minimal change for the series.

“The lesser style wools and those with poor additional measurements, lacked the same demand resulting in general losses of 50 to 80 cents.

“It was the reduction in these types that pushed the individual Micron Price Guides (MPGs) generally down by 20 to 50 cents,” Mr Plunkett said.

“The losses in the MPGs were the driving force behind the fall in the AWEX Eastern Market Indicator (EMI), which lost 16 cents for the series, closing the week at 1494c/kg.

“The EMI has now fallen 416 cents since the start of the 2019 calendar year,” Mr Plunkett said.

“The EMI has dropped by 622 cents since the high it achieved in August 2018, a reduction of 29.4 percent.”

Mr Plunkett said despite the further price reductions, there were more sellers willing to accept the current price levels. The national passed-in rate was 16.1pc, 19.7pc lower than the previous sale.

“The crossbreds were the only sector to record increases for the series, with the MPGs for 26 to 28 micron generally rising by 25 to 40 cents.

“The gains in the crossbred MPGs prevented the EMI from recording a larger fall,” he said.

After performing well over the previous month, the oddments suffered losses this week. All types and descriptions generally fell by 80 to 120 cents, pushing the two carding indicators down by an average of 94 cents, Mr Plunkett said.

Click here to see the latest AWEX Micron Price Guides.