Supported by a weaker rand, the market held up fairly well at this week's sale following last week's slide and Cape Wools' Merino indicator closed down a marginal 0.4% at R46,91/kg (clean).
The rand was extremely volatile, jumping from R10,13 in early morning trade to R10,30 against the US dollar later in the day. The average rate for the day came to R10,17 against the dollar (the average of half-hourly quotes received from a commercial bank during the course of the sale), which was 3.2% weaker compared with last week's exchange rate. At R13,17 , the rand was 0.6% weaker against the euro.
Despite a relatively large offering of 13 328 bales, competition was strong and a high sales percentage of 97% was recorded. Major buyers were Standard Wool SA (3 899 bales); Chargeurs Wool (2 198 bales): Modiano (1 932 bales), Stucken (1 427 bales), Lempriere (Aus) (1 356 bales), and Segard Masurel (1 346 bales).
Prices of similar types were generally mixed due to the unstable currency during the sale, and long fleece wool (70 mm to 80 mm) of 20 microns to 24 microns were down between 1% and 3% on average.
Approximately 7 000 bales will be offered at next week's sale.
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSllC Ltd)")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF)")
