The upward trend continued this week at wool Auction sales in Australia with the AWEX EMI soaring to 1048, up 29c.
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Added to the 26c gain last week the accrued 55c rise has been well overdue for the wool industry participants, many of who are exiting slowly from a drought.
While the Tuesday EMI rise of 24c was spread pretty evenly across the Merino range 19 micron category starred with 40c to 50c gains. Thursday’s market was more moderate, firming by 5c as buyers closed orders for the Easter break.
Thursdays EMI increase was due to a strong Sydney market which found good support on the back of that region’s smallest Merino Fleece offering since 2009, whilst Melbourne lost 5c on the back of their large offering, Fremantle posted a 10c loss late in the day.
Skirtings followed the Fleece trends whilst Crossbred’s made healthy gains with the best results on the 25-26 micron category. Merino carding held current levels, closing largely unchanged for the second consecutive week.
Sales resume in two weeks time, returning after the annual one-week Easter recess. So with the North defying the Southern and Western market close trends presents some doubt of how the market will open post Easter.
With only 42,000 bales rostered followed by a 35,000 bale offering I believe the market will hold around these levels.
Positive GDP growth news from China has strengthened confidence in financial markets and eased the pressure from the AUD.
As always, it is anyone’s guess as to where to go from here. There was some great activity on the forward platforms this week with Buyers and Sellers converging to write business into the winter and early spring. At these levels medium micron Merino fleece contracts are looking at more attractive prices that we have seen since early February.