Wool market remains unchanged

24 Sep '08

2 min read

After declining during early morning trade, prices started improving when the rand exchange rate weakened following the shock resignation of 11 cabinet ministers. The result was that Cape Wools' Merino indicator ended the day virtually unchanged at R53.50/kg (clean).

When the market opened, the rand was trading at around R7.95 to R7.99 to the US dollar, but later on weakened to R8.20 before recovering to around R8,13 at the close of sale. At last week's auction it traded at R8.08. Compared with last Wednesday's exchange rates, it also was 2.3% weaker against the euro and 4.1% down against the Australian dollar.

Fine wools posted the best results with prices of long Merino wools of 19 microns firming by just over 2%. The other categories were largely unchanged or marginally down, except for 24 microns, which declined by 3%.

A total of 7 263 bales was offered of which 94% was sold. Major buyers were Modiano (1 979 bales); Standard Wool SA (1 791 bales); Stucken (932 bales), and Segard Masurel (848 bales).

Average price movements for AWEX-type fleeces MF4 and MF5 of 70 and 80 mm were as follows: 19 microns strengthened 2.3% to R69.64/kg, 20 microns were unchanged at R58.23/kg; 21 microns were also unchanged at R54.12/kg; 22 microns dropped 0.7% to R52.34/kg, 23 microns gained 1.4% at R51.74/kg, but 24 microns were down 3.2% at R48.38/kg. There were no quotes for 25 microns.

Approximately 7 000 bales will be on offer at next week's sale.

Capewools

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