WITH nine weeks left of the current wool selling season, gross revenue so far from Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) live auctions is $457.28 million up on the same period last season.
Last week's national gross revenue of $55.95m from week 40 live auctions at the Western Wool Centre (WWC) and Melbourne and Sydney selling centres - while down $3.01 million on week 40 of last season - took cumulative auctions gross revenue so far this season to $1.983 billion, according to figures in AWEX's Weekly Wool Market Report.
At the end of week 40 last season equivalent cumulative gross revenue was $1.542b, according to AWEX.
Unless the national wool market absolutely collapses this week, auction results should push season-so-far gross revenue past the $2b mark ahead of the Easter week-42 auctions recess next week.
That will move the $2b auctions' milestone achievement forward eight weeks, compared to last season, when flow-on uncertainty locally and more particularly in overseas wool markets, impacted demand and prices.
For several weeks now brokers and buyers at the WWC have commented to Farm Weekly on how well they consider the wool market has been holding up this season, given continuing global trade headwinds.
Those headwinds include Russia's invasion of Ukraine creating general uncertainty for the immediate future and Shanghai's COVID-19 lockdown - where last week officials described the situation as "grim", with volunteers now working and sleeping in an exclusion "bubble" attempting to keep the port operating, but truck drivers are said to be increasingly reluctant to enter the city to collect from or deliver to the port - disrupting supply chains.
Before the Russian invasion and Shanghai lockdown, trade headwinds had already included sharply rising costs, uncertain scheduling and increasing delays on shipping routes.
Those existing problems are understood to have been exacerbated by the Shanghai COVID outbreak and its spreading port holdups which, indirectly, may end up impacting sailing schedules of up to 10 per cent of the world's container shipping fleet, according to US analysts.
While the trade headwinds for wool and other commodities exported from Australia are very real, the AWEX gross revenue statistics prove the brokers' and buyers' recent assessments of wool market strength against the odds, were quiet literally on the money.
For a third week in a row, WWC auctions last week continued the trend of opposite market movements on consecutive trading days of the week.
Reversing the previous week's trend, prices in fleece micron segments generally gained more on the first trading day last week than they shed across the board on the second day.
The only exceptions were the 19.5 micron Merino fleece segment - which added only six cents the first day and then lost 14c the next to finish down 8c for the week at 1513c per kilogram clean - and Merino cardings which added 9c then lost 15c to finish down 6c at 925c/kg.
Biggest mover of the week was the 19 micron fleece guide which rose 12c to 1666c/kg at the close.
The Western Market Indicator finished up 3c at 1421c/kg, compared to the benchmark Eastern Market Indicator which lost 6c to 1369c/kg across the week.
In his Regional Market Summary West after both days' trading last week, WWC technical controller Andrew Rickwood noted better demand for good style wools with low vegetable matter (VM) continuing from previous weeks.
"Lower yielding (less than 62pc dry) and higher VM lots continued to lack buyer support and prices were highly irregular," Mr Rickwood noted.
Another point worth noting from last week was the projected 11,499-bale offering - it could have been the second biggest WWC offering this season behind week 32's 12,720 bales in early February - did not eventuate.
After 12.2pc of the fleece offering and 10.9pc of the overall WWC offering was withdrawn before any bids were called, a total of 9149 bales actually went under auctioneers' hammers and of those, 7506 eventually changed hands with 18pc passed in.
Nominating big offerings then withdrawing lots once market trends interstate become clearer, is an annual autumn exercise wool brokers tend to engage in.
Buyers hate it because they consider they waste their time inspecting lots that are not offered for sale, but if they want to buy wool to fill orders there is not much they can do about it.
This week 9500 bales are projected to be auctioned at the WWC as part of a national offering set to grow by 5676 bales to 48,413.
There are no wool auctions next week because of Easter.
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