INTERNET wool-selling system Wooltrade last week sold its highest number of bales in almost three months as buyers looked online to fill orders quickly.

Wooltrade market operations officer Tom Rookyard said the online system sold 1464 bales last week, including more than 1000 bales in an hour on Wednesday, when physical auction market demand also had its greatest growth.

“This week was the biggest week of volume traded on Wooltrade for the past 14 weeks, when the AWEX EMI dipped to 1250 cents,” Mr Rookyard said.

The 17 micron fleece on Wooltrade sold for up to 1576c/kg clean, and 18 micron lines sold to 1499c/kg, he said. The top price for the week was 1703c/kg clean that was paid for a seven-bale 15.4 micron line of Merino weaners’ fleece. It had a staple length of 78 mm, a yield of 64.6 percent, tensile strength of 52 Newtons/kilotex and 1.1pc vegetable mater content.

The 19 micron fleece sold to 1484c/kg, some 20 micron wool made 1490c/kg, a 21 micron fleece line reached 1425c/kg and a 22 micron lot sold for 1261c/kg. Mr Rookyard said skirtings were well supported, with fine 17 micron Merino pieces making up to 1360c/kg. Short carding and combing drew buyer interest, with an 11-bale 18.3 micron Merino lambs fleece line making 1316c/kg.

Mr Rookyard said last week, the second week after the winter recess break the wool market’s AWEX EMI closed at 1304c/kg.

“Several different factors have combined to impact on the market.

“The biggest single impact was due to lower than expected quantities at the physical auction,” he said.

“Wooltrade.com.au also experienced the impact of a smaller than expected supply.

“The second main impact was due to the highly volatile ($A-$US) exchange rate.”

The volatility in the $A-$US exchange rate was also influenced by the devaluation of the Chinese currency, he said.

Mr Rookyard had an optimistic outlook for the wool market, with just over 30,000 bales expected to be offered this week.

See Wooltrade’s top prices from last week here.

Source: Wooltrade.