WOOL prices plummeted further this week as buyers reacted to a flood of wool onto the market and offering projections for coming sales.- AWEX senior market analyst Lionel Plunkett said the market opened significantly weaker on Wednesday when prices tumbled 60 to 70 cents clean, making it the largest single-day fall in the Eastern Market Indicator since 2011.
- The AWEX-EMI closed down 57 cents to 1263c/kg clean in the final sale for the 2014-15 selling season – the largest weekly fall in more than two years.
- This was despite the EMI in US terms tracking down 41 cents to US978c/kg and the Australian-US dollar exchange rate relatively stable at US77.44 cents, down 0.21c.
- Sellers reacted quickly to the fall in prices, passing in 16.9 percent of the 45,052-bale offering, 9.9pc more than was unsold last week.However, despite falls over the past few weeks the AWEX-EMI still managed a 247 cent improvement for the fiscal season, Mr Plunkett said.The year-on-year AWEX-EMI increase of 24.3pc was the sixth best result in 35 years of tracking the EMI (both the AWEX and Aust. Wool Corp series), he said.
Bale offering up almost 10,000 on previous estimate
Mr Plunkett said the weekly offering was almost 10,000 bales more than the initial estimate made three weeks ago.
“On paper Fremantle showed the largest losses when many of the Micron Price Guides shed 150 cents.
“However, this was compared to its previous sale held a fortnight earlier,“ he said.
“Although Thursday continued to trend lower, the falls were more subdued.”
Mr Plunkett said Fremantle prices generally fell 20-40 cents on Thursday, however the east coast was down by a reasonably modest 5-20 cents clean and showed some signs of firming in the final hour of selling.
“Selected stylish types in the finer microns also gave out positive signals when they continued to attract good support despite the weakness elsewhere.”
Mr Plunkett said Merino Skirtings followed the fleece sector lower with falls of 50-70 cents clean.
“Having held their ground fairly well until now the crossbreds succumbed to the overriding market sentiment, falling 50 cents this week.
“Merino cardings also lost ground, falling 10 to 20 cents.”
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Source: AWEX.
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