WEEKLY MARKET REPORT

Week Ending 15^th September, 2017

AWEX Northern Micron Indices Comparison 

MARKET BACK TO SQUARE #1

This week’s market could not maintain last sale’s levels as savage falls on the opening day were met by consolidation in the final session. Falls extended across all microns ranging from 50c to 70c. The AWEX EMI lost 31c for the week to finish at 1525c - in US $ terms the fall was 22c to 1221c. Only the better style and finer micron lots escaped the carnage of the losses quoted above (20/30 cent falls). Growers were caught by the surprisingly large correction to pass in a total of 20% of fleece lines for the week.

Merino skirtings also suffered the same fate as their fleece counterparts with similar patterns for both days. Most merino skirtings were 20c to 30c cheaper with the < 3% VM least affected with 19microns and coarser 10c to 20c from last week’s levels. Again only the finer, better styled types looked to be only marginally cheaper for the sale. The carding sector was the only sector to finish the sale in positive territory as all types were 10c to 15c to the good. Crossbreds followed the lead of their merino counterparts with all micron ranges 20c to 30c cheaper.

The opening 2 sales after the annual winter recess in August yielded great results as the EMI rose 92c but this gain has now been completely wiped out over the past month as the indicator is back to exactly the same level it finished on in early July before the recess. Reasons for the fall do vary but most exporters and traders look to have weakened buyer confidence due to FRX, slowing of new business, increased volume of wool sold which has restricted buyers’ ability to obtain adequate finance to fund further purchases and the selection of types coming onto the market (especially fleece wools) with abnormally high mid-breaks.

Many of you may have been contacted this week to sign an AWI Director Nomination form on behalf of Don Macdonald. 100 eligible shareholder signatures were required which, as we found out, was harder than we thought as around 40% of wool tax levy payers have not become shareholders. A couple of weeks ago woolgrowers were sent two letters from AWI advising them of levies paid in the last three years. One letter was to eligible shareholders stating their voting entitlements. The other letter was to levy payers inviting them to become a shareholder. This letter also showed the amount of wool tax paid during the last three years. If you received the latter we would urge you to fill in the form and lodge it either online or by mail.

Macwool will offer 1030 bales next Wednesday. Let's hope there's good news from the Nanjing Wool Conference.

Main Buyers (This Week)