A quick Billion-dollars of wool

We’ve ticked over the billion-dollar milestone for total value of wool sold this year which is something of an achievement. At this point in the season last year the value was 26% lower than it is today despite the cumulative bales sold being just 10% lower. The wool market hasn’t reached this mark by week 17 since 2002.

The Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) rose 10¢ on the week to 1,578¢ in Australian dollar terms. However, the falling Australian dollar has put some real pressure on the EMI in US dollars. It saw a drop of 13¢ to the week back to 1,218¢. This is a win-win situation, with Australian sellers receiving a higher local price and overseas buyers getting more “wool for their buck”. The Western Market Indicator also supported by the shifting currency by rising 20¢.  

Sales were fairly strong across the board, with the real achievers again being in the fine wool category. Wool 19 MPG and finer gained between 35 and 45¢ in the Northern market while similar rises were only received for superfine wool (16.5 MPG) in the Southern Market. Premiums for fine fibres over medium fibres this season have been significant- Figure 1. Prices across the rest of the Merino market were generally positive, rising on average 10 to 20¢.

Crossbred fibres took another hit this week as all buyer interest seems to be mounting on finer fibres. Price reductions were mostly between 20 and 40¢ while the better prepared lines managed to attract a little support.

The skirtings market had another solid week seeing gains of 20 to 50¢. Buyers were particularly happy to pay more for low vegetable matter. Cardings indicators rose 30¢ on average across all three markets.

The response from growers this week was to pass in 3.2% of the offered wool, resulting in 43,473 bales sold. This is a slight retraction on last week but still considerably higher than last year.

Olivia Agar
www.mecardo.com.au