It was evident the Superfine and Fine lots had to be perfectly classed and specified to get the attention of the Italian spinners and when the lots were suitable the prices were at large premiums to the market.
With the bottleneck in the local logistics in Melbourne dumps, exporters were extremely selective in their purchasing, which may be their only strategy to preserving their credit facilities for the upcoming weeks, unless more credit becomes available.
The dumps and container packing houses in Melbourne hope to clear some of the current back log of bales and halve the time to get wool through the dumps and on the boats.
In the wake of the Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Banks being supported by mergers and governmental loans world financial markets remain on tender hooks which may also slow demand at retail in the coming months.
The AWEX EMI closed on 1318c up 1c at auction sales in Australia last week. Over 9.4% of the rostered offering was withdrawn before sale, substantially reducing the offering to 40,224 bales.
This was a welcome reduction from the previous months of larger offerings and finished the week with an 88.9% clearance rate. This week the national sales roster returned to the Tuesday-Wednesday for the three selling centres with Melbourne extending (in isolation) into Thursday.
After a rocky start to the week on Tuesday, the market showed some positive signs in the medium and coarser MPG’s Wednesday and Thursdays sales whilst the sub 18.5μ struggled to maintain prices of the previous weeks
Merino Fleece The Eastern selling centres posted two days of variable market signals with the selection quality and specifications of the offering the governing principal.
It was evident the Superfine and Fine lots had to be perfectly classed and specified to get the attention of the Italian spinners and when the lots were suitable the prices were at large premiums to the market.
Whist the Northern MPG’s closed cheaper, with the exception of the 20 MPG which measured no change for the week, Melbourne posted good rises on the back of new business on Thursday adding 15-55c on their 19-21 MPG’s.
Merino Skirtings mirrored the fleece and reports of almost every lot containing un-scourable colour in the northern markets made it very hard to get an accurate read on the potential of the skirting market, forcing exporters to assess their risk on most lots before bidding. |
