AUSTRALIA’S wool auction market was overall unchanged this week, after five consecutive selling series of losses.

The Australian Wool Exchange said price movements varied across wool types, micron groups and selling centres.

“The overall trend in the Merino fleece sector was a softening in the finer microns (18.5 micron and finer), and a firm to dearer market in the medium to broad sector (19 micron and coarser).

“Across all regions, the movements in the individual Micron Price Guides (MPGs) for Merino fleece ranged between plus 14 and minus 29 cents,” AWEX said.

“The 17 micron MPG fell again this week and the east coast 17 micron MPG average is now 196 cents lower than the start of January.

“The crossbreds eased slightly overall, with the finer and coarser edges of the crossbred market most affected.”

Brokers passed in 9.5 percent of the 39,780 bale offering.

The AWEX Eastern Market Indicator gained two cents on the first selling day, increasing its run of daily rises to three. The second selling day the EMI gave back the two cents it gained, AWEX said.

“On Thursday, there was an unusual New Zealand only offering, the first time this has occurred in over four years.

“The 4554 bales on offer was the largest New Zealand offering since 2007,” AWEX said.

“As there was no Australian wool offered, all MPG and EMI movements were unchanged (in Australian dollar terms), as New Zealand wool does not contribute to these indicators.”

AWEX said when viewed in USD terms, the EMI movements have been more positive.

“After halting a seven-selling day downward slide on the final day last week, the EMI added 4 and 6 cents across the first two selling days.

“Currency movement alone lowered it by one cent on the third day.”

The USD EMI closed the week 8 cents higher at 759 US cents.

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Australian Wool Innovation trade consultant Scott Carmody said following on from the Chinese New Year holidays, most factories and traders are now back behind their desks and looking for their next move.

“Evidence at this week’s selling was that the direct buying representatives and indent operators were more active, yet not fully back to normal strength by any means.

“As this became visible, the traders became keener to execute any outstanding orders that were cash positive,” Mr Carmody said.

“This slight increase in interest though was enough to create the additional competition to traders to see the market hold in AUD terms and give that USD improvement.

“Even more relevant though was the slightly more active Indian participation and the odd spark from European operators,” he said.

“The market tone though seemed similar with confidence a word not being fully expressed yet, particularly from European reps further up the chain.”

Next week, quantity is expected to be of a similar size. There are currently 40,168 bales rostered for sale nationally over two days, with Sydney a designated superfine sale.

Click here to see the latest AWEX Micron Price Guides.

Sources – AWEX, AWI.