AUSTRALIA’S auction wool market managed its first general lift since mid-July, despite an increased offering.

The Australian Wool Exchange said the market recorded its overall positive result since the week of 12 July.

“Fremantle returned to the roster this week, after not holding a sale in the previous selling series, pushing the national offering up to 44,690 bales, 5916 more bales than the previous week,” AWEX reported.

“When selling opened in Sydney and Melbourne the market was buoyant, with a positive trend evident.

“Strong buyer interest in the good/best style Merino fleece types helped to push the market upward,” AWEX said.

“This was reflected in the individual Micron Price Guides (MPGs) for Merino fleece in the east that rose by between 5 and 21 cents for the day, a 6-cent fall in the Southern 17-micron MPG and an unchanged 18.5-micron MPG in the north the only anomalies.

“Small positive movements in the other sectors resulted in a 9-cent increase in the AWEX Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) for the day,” AWEX said.

“This was the first daily rise in the EMI in seven selling days, the EMI last rose on the 11th of July, where a 17-cent rise was recorded.

“Because the western region did not suffer the falls recorded in the East last week, when the selling opened in Fremantle these falls were quickly realised,” AWEX said.

“In stark contrast to the positive movements in the eastern centres, the western Merino fleece MPGs lost between 26 and 64 cents for the day, while the western Indicator dropped 38 cents.

“In the eastern centres on the second day, the market could not maintain its upward path and by the end of the day the Merino fleece types had given back much of the first day’s gains.”

AWEX said the EMI dropped five cents for the day and closed the week 4 cents higher at 1131 cents/kg clean.

Healthy competition in auction rooms – AWI

Australian Wool innovation trade consultant Scott Carmody said pre-sale expectations from the trade was for a better week for prices at the auctions and that was certainly the case upon opening.

“Almost all categories sold progressively dearer through the first day of selling with the result being wool values closing at 15 to 30 cents higher.

“The tone in the auction rooms was healthy and competition reasonably strong, but notably, two or three of the leading buyers were not getting caught up in the initial flurry of activity,” he said.

“Whilst not sitting out entirely from purchasing, they strategically left the push to others.”

Mr Carmody said the second and final day of selling was hampered somewhat with the large offering consisting of very similar types in the super fine end of the market.

“These types are comparatively much harder to sell at the moment than the broader than 18.5 micron Merino types.

“Additionally a stronger Australian dollar against the US dollar had somewhat stymied the business emanating from mainly China overnight as those Chinese buyers sought to get set, after a few of the Indian interests had contracts fixed for price pre-sale,” he said.

“The auctions subsequently lost a little impetus throughout the final day and gave up some of the previous days’ gains.

“Notably, as prices regressed, those leading buyers returned to the action soaking up the quantity on offer at more advantageous levels.”

Mr Carmody said the net result for the week was largely positive though, with most wools closing at levels of 5 to 15 cents higher.

“Most participants were seemingly pleased that a brighter atmosphere had prevailed after a month of uncertainty and lowering prices.

“The Fremantle (WA) market figures are reflective of the market prices of two weeks ago, as they did not operate in last week’s markets that had considerable falls, and adjustments were made this week.”

Mr Carmody said once again, wool growers and their seller representatives were largely accepting the prices on offer and a solid 89pc was sold and cleared to the trade.

“After being way lower than last season for the first month on the new selling season, the sold amount of bales for the season is now close to last year’s volume of sold bales at the same point of the season.”

Next week’s offering is of a similar size, 45,537 bales are expected to be offered nationally.

Click here to see the latest AWEX Micron Price Guides.

Source – AWEX, AWI.