The Merino fleece MPG saw little movement in Sydney while the superfine categories waned in the South. Skirtings increased on last weeks levels slightly as did the crossbreds and carding wools.

The 50,226 bales originally rostered reduced to 48,085 before the week began with four per cent withdrawn prior to sale.

Coupled with a 9.8 per cent pass-in rate the total sold was whittled down to 43,365 bales nationally only 1000 bales more than last week despite the 5000 bale increase in the offering.

The current offerings feature a growing proportion of Style Four (48.3 per cent) fleece wool of which 72 per cent contain less than 1 per cent vm.

While this may assist the buyers to maximise the opportunities to fill their orders the critical factor for the buyers over the past six weeks has been the high number of lots containing low Staple Strength and high mid point breaks (a result of drought conditions across the eastern states). This week only 25 per cent of the offering was greater than 40nkt and over 42 per cent was less than 50 per cent mid point breaks.

Three selling weeks remain before the Christmas recess with next weeks offering the largest in 12 months tipping the scales at 53,793 bales. With the YTD sales through the auction sales showing a small reduction of 0.4 per cent and the quality of the clip being lesser than previous year the market has performed reasonably well to date.