The Australian wool market finished 2.9% lower, on average, at sales in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle this week.
The AWEX EMI fell by 25¢ (-2.6%), ending the week at 931¢/kg clean. This reflected decreases of 19¢ ( 1.9%) in the North and 30¢ (-3.2%) in the South, with their corresponding Regional Indicators finishing the week at 963¢ and 905¢ clean respectively. The Western Indicator fell by 36¢ (-3.7%) over the two week period since the last sale, finishing the week at 944¢.
In a three day sale in Melbourne and a two day sale in Sydney, the AWEX EMI fell by 18¢ on Tuesday, by 17¢ on Wednesday and increased by 10¢ on Thursday when the level of competition lifted sharply after reports of good trading activity the previous night.
In a quirk of the EMI calculation when only one centre sells, the fall of 18¢ on Tuesday did not reflect the true fall of 33¢ in the Southern Indicator. The Western Indicator dropped by 53¢ on Wednesday after the two week break and increased by 17¢ on Thursday.
For the second successive week an unexpected increase in the estimate of the number of bales available for sale in the first sale of the new season has been accompanied by a sharp fall in the market on the first day of selling, with the Market Indicator falling by 25¢ last week and by 33¢ this week.
When combined with the easing seen in the previous two weeks the market has moved back to pre-Easter levels. Nevertheless, those prices were seen as very good at the time and are well above those of earlier in the season, as seen in the following paragraph.
When compared with the start of the upward movement of the market in October, the EMI and the Northern, Southern and Western Indicators are up by 190¢ (25.6%), 197¢ (25.7%),185 (25.7%) and 227¢ (31.7%), respectively. 19 to 23 micron average AWEX Micron Price Guides (MPGs) are up by 211¢ to 234¢ clean over the period and by 196¢ for 24 micron wools. At the fine end, the changes are 87¢ for 16.5 micron wool, 134¢ for 17.0, 174¢ for 17.5, 154¢ for 18 and 199¢ for 18.5 micron wool.
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