The Carding market had two solid selling days with most types and descriptions tending slightly dearer for the week.
The AWEX EMI posted a fall of 10c, closing the week on 1534c at auction sales in Australia last week.
With 38,000 bales offered the market opened positively with buyer confidence high and prices posting 5 to 10c for the day, resulting in the EMI up 5c (1549c).
Whilst the Fremantle market opened positively, support weakened as the sale progressed resulting in the Western Indicator dropping 14c for the day, as merino MPG’s discounted between 10 and 30c.
This tone set at the end of Wednesday carried through to the Thursday’s offering, with low yielding, poorer style and specified wools hardest hit as prices were generally reduced by 15 to 30c. This excluded the bookend MPG’s 16.5 and 22 which fell 5-10c.
Whilst the Merino fleece generally lost 25-35c for the week the skirting market was strongly influenced by vegetable matter content with wools containing less than 3.0% vm remaining highly sought after, finished the week relatively unchanged.
Skirtings with higher vm struggled and these types had price decreases of between 20 and 40c, with lots containing 6.0% vm and over most affected.
Once again the crossbred sector remained insulated from the Merino movements with most types and descriptions recording rises of 5 to 10 cents.
The Carding market had two solid selling days with most types and descriptions tending slightly dearer for the week.
This week’s offering of 36,343 bales is rostered for sale in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle. This week reports from IWTO Harrogate began dribbling back to our shores and are very positive.
The balance between supply and demand remain in a positive balance for a rosy medium term future for wool especially the Merino sector.
As expected the three issues emerging from Chinese interests were all related to the high price of wool, however my sources report a positive tone overall from the conference.
-Marty Moses, Moses and Son, Temora