ONLINE wool sales dried up in Australia last week as the physical auction market experienced a sharp decline, driving micron price indicators down in all AWEX selling centres.

AuctionsPlus sales associate Ed Murphy said the online and physical market retractionThis was despite a small offering of just over 19,000 bales across the two auction selling centres – Sydney and Melbourne.

“It is reported the lack of confident buyers is again attributed to the quality of wool on offer with a large amount of high vegetable matter content and low tensile strength wool on offer.

“Reports from the physical auctions, with Fremantle having a week off due to supply, suggested buying at the start of auction on the first day at the southern centre was slow from the beginning to end.’

He said large quantity buyers remained absent, regardless of the reported supply pressures.

“This momentum reportedly picked back up on the second day despite large quantities of the lower quality drought affected wool still being discounted.

“The sentiment at physical auction was reflected online as there were no sales on AuctionsPlus wool last week.”

Mr Murphy said strong buyer support for the better style wools was reported in Melbourne, particularly on the second day when Merino price indicators regained some value, although the poorer styles were still heavily discounted.

This was reflected in the benchmark AWEX Eastern Market Indicator falling 52 cents on Wednesday and then a further 5 cents on Thursday to reach 1766c/kg clean with a pass-in rate of 12.8 percent.

Mr Murphy said the largest falls coming for 18µ to 20µ micron wools as large amounts of the finer wool types are being discounted, leading to the Merino wool indicators having mixed results across the two selling centres but largely ending the week down 50 cents.

This week the volume of supply increases significantly based on previous weeks with nearly 30,000 bales on offer for the last sale of the 2018/19 selling season and the Fremantle selling centre open again.

“With supply pressures, the tough season continuing and reports of the larger quantity buyers remaining largely absent from buying, it is expected the market will continue along the same path as last week,” he said.