Steady price gains were recorded on almost all types and descriptions at this weeks’ Australian wool auctions. Both Sydney and Melbourne operated under a very competitive environment, despite a few of the usual Chinese buyers absent from sale rooms. This positivity advanced general price levels upwards of 10ac/clean kg higher, with both the Merino and Crossbred sectors similarly affected. The WA Fremantle market though outperformed their Eastern counterparts and doubled the gains of those centres by posting 20ac/clean kg gains across their entire offering.

Buyers were greeted with lower auction volumes this week as sellers saw no advantage in loading volume into a sale week that had both Monday as an Australian public holiday and Wednesday a sale day off to allow for recognition of the Chinese New Year. A weaker Australian dollar forex rate against the major currencies combined with the better enquiry from overseas to allow the market prices to push upwards in local AUD terms but remain relatively stable in USD and CNY terms, thus all parties involved in the transfer of ownership this week would have been relatively satisfied by weeks’ end.

The start of the selling week was conducted under a noticeable stability of pricing. Most sale room operators were acting to extremely cautious strategies and not letting the small quantity available for sale spook the market. Purchasing numbers by the end of the day was very evenly spread amongst the top buyers. The second and final day of selling on Thursday though saw buyers having to push price levels up in order to complete commitments and this is where most of the gains were made for the week. In fact, price levels were the highest at the close of selling.

Buying was dominated by Australia’s largest trading exporter who ended the week with over 18% of the entire offering.  Not far behind was their fiercest trading competitor at a touch over 14%. China’s largest top maker buyer remained active in sale rooms and participated. 

Australian wool auctions have around 38,000 bales being offered next week, but Fremantle will sell just on Tuesday as their volumes lighten off over in the West for the time being. Melbourne sees a drop off in comparison to their usual dominant weekly volumes whilst Sydney has a comparatively larger percentage of bales being offered for the week.  Both Eastern markets sell Tuesday/Wednesday.