Ultrafine wool sold for up to 2344 cents a kilogram clean on AuctionsPlus’ Wooltrade last week.

Wooltrade market operations manager Tony Benson said in a positive week for the Australian wool market last week, the designated superfine sale in Sydney encouraged a few sales of superfine wool on WoolTrade, but most categories received good attention.

Low mid-break good style wool trend continuing

Mr Benson said the trend in buyers’ preference for low mid-break, better style fleece wool continued.

“There are 16,200 bales on Wooltrade and that is this season’s highest listing.

“There is a large selection for buyers if the market moves, but it would need to shift 50 cents clean to get to the 3600 bales sold in three weeks at this time last year.”

Wooltrade’s top price for the week was a well-presented Australian ultrafine single bale fleece lot branded SPRINGVALE and offered by Fox and Lillie Rural. The 14.8 micron bale, had a yield of 70.4 percent, tensile strength of 39 Newtons/kilotex, staple length of 71 millimetres and vegetable matter content of 1.1pc.

“This lot sold for a respectable 2344c/kg clean but was joined by a 15.6 microns, 0.6pc vm line of 65.8pc yield, 79mm and 38 N/kt that sold for 1824c/kg. Congratulations to both for this strong result,” Mr Benson said.

Superfine wool market signals are positive

Fox and Lillie Rural’s technical and marketing manager Eamon Timms said signs of improvement for the superfine wool market were seen during a recent trip to Europe.

“We saw some positive signals for those wools, but not overwhelmingly so.

“The sentiment has slightly improved, but its ‘easy as she goes’ for want of a better description,” he said.

Most of the European economies were in better shape, with the exceptions of Spain, Portugal and France, Mr Timms said.

Crossbred wools also selling on Wooltrade

Other WoolTrade highlights included 14 bales of 18.1 micron, average style wool, 2.3pc vm, 79mm length and a robust 43 N/kt of strength sold for 1192 cents clean, he said.

The 19 micron wools over 30N/kt sold for up to 1160c/kg clean and average style 20 micron lines made to 1135c/kg clean. Burry 21 micron fleece sold for up to 1100c/kg clean, but all had high tensile strength, he said.

Mr Benson said the Wooltrade crossbred offering was thoroughly inspected by the trade with quite a few sales. The top price was 946c/kg clean for a best style 24.4 micron line with a 74pc yield and a staple length of 110mm.

“Cardings didn’t receive the attention a fall in the Aussie dollar should give them, but remember they are still close to their all-time high and offer growers near-record prices if they have them,” Mr Benson said.

With 16,200 bales listed, Wooltrade has had limited inquiry over the last few days and the AuctionsPlus wool sales on Tuesdays at 11am will be a good test for the market, he said.

 Source: Wooltrade