WOOLGROWERS and brokers may have to wait a week or two into new year wool sales for a firming market to materialise at the Western Wool Centre (WWC).
They were met with a subdued market on the resumption of live wool auctions last week, after the three-week Christmas-new year recess - a soft market first day back, but less soft to begin with then actually firming towards the end of trading on the second day back.
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The WWC's first day back was also marked by a power outage affecting the WWC and Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) recording of sales data, the surrounding AWH woolstores and warehousing complex and other businesses over the wider Bibra Lake area.
Luckily the outage occurred just after pieces, bellies and oddments auctions were completed for the morning session and brokers and buyers were about to take a lunch break.
The power was back on in time for fleece wool auctions in the afternoon.
From WWC buyers' list figures for the first week's trading in the new year, it was obvious Techwool Trading's man Russell Fraser was first to shake off any holiday lethargy and Techwool, Australia's largest national wool trader, obviously had volume orders to fill.
With prices slipping from pre-Christmas levels across the board on the first day back, Mr Fraser bought just over a quarter of all wool sold - a total of 1064 bales or 25.3 per cent, mostly fleece - at the WWC.
Local trader PJ Morris Wools was a distant second on the list with 511 bales (12.2pc) and another national trader, Endeavour Wool Exports, third with 497 (11.8pc).
On the second day Mr Fraser's voice was again heard most often in the WWC sale room, successfully bidding on 996 bales (21.2pc).
But with the price slide of the previous day starting to turn around, he came up against more bidding competition from Darren Calder, buying for Morris, and Tianyu Wool's buyer Zena Wareham.
They bought 625 bales (13.3pc) and 522 bales (11.1pc) respectively.
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Proving the Techwool buying spree was not just a WWC phenomenon, it also topped the buyers' list at the main Melbourne wool selling centre on the same two days, ahead of Endeavour and Australian Merino Exports the first day and ahead of Pelican Australia, Tianyu and United Wool Company on the second.
The Melbourne centre also traded a third day on its own last week to cater for the volume of wool growers wanted to sell and Techwool topped the buyers' list that day too, ahead of Pelican and Endeavour.
At Sydney wool sales last week Techwool was second on the buyers' list to Tianyu the first day and third behind Endeavour and Tianyu on the second day.
Brokers withdrawing 948 mainly fleece and oddments bales before the first WWC auction on the opening day reduced the offering to a more manageable 5471 bales, but still almost one third of the fleece bales and 21.4pc overall were passed in after failing to reach optimistic reserve prices.
The 18 and 18.5 micron finer end of the WWC market slipped only three cents per kilogram the first day, but losses for the 19-21 mid micron segments ranged from 21c (19 micron) to 50c (21 micron).
On the second day, with 5140 bales on offer, a 4c easing of the 18.5 micron indicative price was the biggest fall, with the 18 and 21 micron prices sliding 1c, the 19 micron sector and Merino cardings marking time, the 19 micron sector gaining 2c and 20 micron sector adding 5c.
The passed-in rate pulled back to 8.2pc on the second day.
"There was a soft start which was reflected in the part tender-high POB (point of break in the staple) types," Lionel Plunkett from AWEX noted in the Regional Market Summary for the second day.
"Better types continued to find good support however, particularly towards the close when prices rallied 5c to 10c on increasing interest late in the day," Mr Plunkett said.
Westcoast Wool & Livestock auctioneer Danny Burkett had a slightly different view after selling Westcoast's fleece catalogue in the middle of the second day.
"I think it trailed off towards the end, I think there's some volume issues there, but I will say good wools with low CV of hauteur (coefficient of variation in the length of wool fibres) in the right micron looked after themselves," Mr Burkett said.
Across the opening week, the Western Market Indicator shed 19c to finish at 1467c/kg clean, in sharp contrast to the benchmark Eastern Market Indicator which added 6c to finish at 1333c/kg.
Both Melbourne and Sydney wool markets opened softer too, but recovered more quickly than the WWC market, with price rises in most segments on the second day and, in Melbourne, price rises continuing for the mid micron segments on a third day.
Gross turnover from wool auctions exceeding $7 million on both days last week as the WWC took its wool sales turnover so far this season to $210m, up $11m on the same time last season.
According to AWEX statistics, Sydney wool auctions turnover is $2m up on last season, at $386m, but Melbourne's wool auctions turnover so far is down $29m on last season, at $557m.
This week's WWC offering is set to be a more manageable 8331 bales, down from 10,653 last week.
But the national wool offering is set to increase from 50,469 bales last week to 51,203 this week.
