AUSTRALIA’S wool auction market retracted further this week, with weaker buyer demand pushing prices lower for the second consecutive selling series.

The Australian Wool Exchange said last week’s losses did not deter many sellers from the market and the national offering was only slightly lower, with 42,492 bales available to the trade.

“The total amount offered nationally is now tracking very close to last season.

“This year there has been 1,652,464 bales put though the auction system, this is 10,376 more than the previous season, an increase of only 0.6 percent, AWEX said.

“The western region suffered the largest falls in the previous series and the individual Micron Price Guides (MPGs) in Fremantle fell well below those posted in the eastern centres.

“This series, the eastern centres came more into line with the west, recording the largest falls for the week,” AWEX said.

“The Merino MPGs in Sydney and Melbourne dropped by between 11 and 55 cents, compared to falls in the west of between 1 and 22 cents.

“After recording the highest passed in rate (24.8pc) in nearly two years in the previous series, less extreme price reductions meant a smaller passed-in rate, this week 15.3pc of the national offering was passed in, 9.5pc lower than was experienced last week,” AWEX said.

The AWEX Eastern Market Indicator lost 21 cents for the series, closing at 1263 cents/kg clean.

“The EMI is now at its lowest point since December,” AWEX said.

“The carding market lacked buyer support and fell for the seventh consecutive series.

“The three Merino Carding (MC) indicators fell to an average of 766 cents, this is the lowest average level of the MCs since October 2020, where the MCs were sitting at an average of 731 cents.”

AWEX said despite the falls of the previous two weeks, another reasonably large sale is rostered for next week. Currently, 45,936 bales are expected to be offered in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.

Click here to see the latest AWEX Micron Price Guides.

Source – AWEX.