Better quality wools were highly sought after in the Australian wool market this week as the Eastern Market Indicator made only a minor adjustments, falling just 0.8 per cent for the series.
In the most stabile wool market the industry has experienced in weeks, the AWEX EMI closed just nine cents lower than last week, landing at 1150 cents per kilogram, clean.
But it was all about quality as buyers sought higher yielding, stylish lots with favourable additional measurements, especially those will low co-efficient variation in Hauteur length.
The greater the variation of hauteur is, the more chance the length it is predicting will not be achieved.
Therefore, in contrast the lower style, lower yielding wools with high CVHs did not garner the same support and were highly irregular, tending cheaper.
Nutrien Wool south east manager, Craig Lawson, said the lower quality type wools are due to the break in the season across most of the eastern seaboard in February.
"Wools that are coming into the market are long wools, in excess of 100mm and are tender, being well under 30 newtons, to the extent of 25 and 20 newtons and big mid-breaks," Mr Lawson said.
"Fifty per cent CVH is acceptable, but 60 to 63pc CVH, you are moving further away from that desired result being achieved.
"In saying that, the discount for those high CVH wools is still not as great as what we experienced 18 months to two years ago."
Mr Lawson said manufacturers are able to use the those types of wools in the woollen system by speeding the machines up and breaking the fibre.
"In the woollen system for knitwear and sportswear, those long, mid-break wools, they are breaking them," Mr Lawson said.
"Therefore, if it is 110mm and it is a 90pc mid break, they will get two lots of 55mm.
"Not all those types of wool are going into that, but that is part of the manufacturing that some of these mills are utilising."
But he warned as more of the lower quantity wools hit the market, the discounts will become greater.
"Up until now, I don't think the discounts have been as savage as what they possibly could be," Mr Lawson said.
"We expect to see these types of wools up until the end of the year and on the other side we will still see them from clips that have been held back from sale.
"But the shearing that happens after Christmas, the break will not be in the middle, it will be at the tip."
Stability there, but any offering increase may see market suffer
The stability of this week's market is highlighted by the marginal movements in the EMI.
And according to the AWEX wool reports, in the previous 10 selling days prior to this series, the EMI moved a total of 561c in both positive and negative directions, an average movement of 56 cents per day.
However, according to Mr Lawson, the market will suffer and react negatively with a substantial increase in offering.
"If we see 50,000 bales or up near that amount, the market will "cheapen up" on the back of volume," Mr Lawson said.
"It would be handy if we could have 30,000 to 35,000 bales of wool a week, but that isn't going to happen because people are going to want to sell, especially those that are shearing now, before Christmas."
Next week's offering increases to 41,822 bales available to the trade in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.
Crossbred market drags EMI down
Unfortunately the crossbred sector didn't attract the same level of support as the Merino wools, pushing prices down.
The micron price guides for 26 28-micron wools were reduced by between 15 and 40 cents, contributing to the overall fall in the EMI.
"The quantity of the crossbred wool is lifting every week, simply because this is the time of the year they get shorn," Mr Lawson said.
"Most crossbreed breeders are not usually going to hang onto their wool.
"They shear it and get it sold. At the end of the day, for a full-blown crossbred producer, for them wool is not their main concern, lambs are their main concern."