It was a tale of two wool types when breeds opposed each other in last week’s wool auctions as crossbred wool tapered and Merino fleeces rebounded.
Merino lots recorded gains across most microns, but crossbred fleece values, after the extraordinary advancement the week prior week, fell by up to 130 cents, prompting some firm seller resistance.
By the end of the week over nearly 20 per cent of of crossbred wool was passed in.
The week closed with the Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) falling by 11 cents to finish at 1849 cents per kilogram, back 25c in US terms to US1336c/kg.
Scott Carmody, AWI trade consultant, said this is a perfect example of the dangerous observation of looking at the EMI in isolation.
“This clearly didn’t indicate the direction that Merino wools took last week, or indeed the extent of the crossbred falls in the crossbred sector,” Mr Carmody said.
“Obviously the end uses of wool types and descriptions are completely different not only between the differing sheep breeds, but additionally within breeds, so drilling down to individual type areas is essential for the clearer market signals.”
AWEX market information manager Lionel Plunkett said there was some orders that caused the crossbred prices to spike and now they have disappeared.
“There was reasonable demand for these types of wools because there were orders for outerwear garments which crossbred wool goes into,” he said.
“It jumped up quickly and got a bit ahead of itself, now it is coming back.”
Mr Plunkett said there was issues around shipping dates as well as the increasing crossbred supply.
“We are coming into the usual part of the season where we get those larger crossbred wool volumes,” he said.
“And the rough weather out of Sydney a few weeks ago had an impact on shipping timelines which disrupted some of the ships coming into port.
“But it was definitely a two-tired market there in terms of what is happening between crossbreds and Merinos.”
He said there was also a bit of reluctance to commit at this late stage before the Christmas recess.
This week the offering jumped substantially to around 49,000 bales for the final sale for a month for the Christmas recess.
At time of print, the single selling centre of Melbourne on Tuesday opened strongly with better Merino fleeces 15 to 25 cents dearer while crossbred wool, with its biggest offering for the year, was still fairing softer dropping 15c.