WEEKLY MARKET REPORT

Week Ending 29^th June, 2018

AWEX Northern Micron Indices Comparison

MARKET SURGE SLOWS

Our last sale this week for the 2017/2018 season saw Fremantle return after not offering last week and push the quantity for the three Centres to 31,784 bales, well up on last week’s offering. Early in the week we heard from the exporters that they expected the market to slow and slow it did. The Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) slipped to 2056 cents down 17cents.

The market saw the finer fleece microns hardest hit, retreating 20 to 40 cents, the 19 to 20 micron fleece were off 10 to 20 cents. Interestingly a very small offering of 21 micron fleece wools managed to remain in record territory rising a further 10 cents.

We continue to hear from the show floor that Chinese mills want more supply of 21 to 22 micron long 100mm plus merino wools. Unfortunately with our continuing drought, most clips are finer and many have shorn early reducing the length.

We saw this week that short fleece wools (60mm and less) and poorer, very dusty types were very neglected by the buying trade. The skirting types also felt the slowing with broken and bellies slipping 30 to 50 cents for the week. Oddments also were off 5 to 10 cents and crossbreds down 5 to 20 cents, 30 micron being the most affected.

As the season closes it is interesting to see which exporters buy the most. Our top three exporters this season were:

1. Techwool Trading with 13.6% or 242,410 bales
2. Fox and Lillie with 10.6% or 189,003 bales
3. Kathaytex with 7.9% or 140,721 bales.

So next week we start the 2018/2019 season with Sale 01. Currently there are 43,232 bales rostered for sale. A larger quantity as many growers wait for this sale to sell in the new financial year. Let’s hope that this larger quantity does not slow the market further. Macdonald and Co will offer on Thursday, 5^th July, 961 bales.

All eyes are now on the dollar holding steady at 73 cents and assisting this market to stabilise. Keeping in mind that the falls we are seeing are miniscule when looking at the rises we have had this season. Some rain has been reported to us. Let’s hope we are seeing the end of this dry.

Ag Concepts Fwd Prices as at 29^th June, 2018

Main Buyers (this week)