Wool auctions resuming last week at the Western Wool Centre (WWC) after a week's break during which wool prices fell significantly at Eastern States' selling centres, was never going to result in good news.
Throw into the confidence mix more gloomy economic forecasts of deflation in our primary wool customer country China, plus the fact new-season wools from spring shearing are still some weeks away from coming onto the market, the sentiment at the WWC last week was all about catching up.
As a result, on the opening day of trading last week Merino fleece prices across the micron spectrum and for Merino cardings took a dive, attempting to catch up with two days of negative trading at the Melbourne and Sydney selling centres during the previous week.
But, as Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) technical controller at the WWC Andrew Rickwood noted in his regional market summary, "as the falls were not unexpected, the fleece passed in rate was only 10 per cent".
The catch-up price falls at the WWC ignored a positive turnaround in sentiment and prices on the opening day of trading last week in Melbourne and Sydney.
But the better news from Melbourne and Sydney sales did have a moderating effect on price falls at the WWC on the second trading day last week.
There were still price falls across the fleece micron spectrum at the WWC, but these were much smaller than what they had been the day before.
But with a bigger offering giving buyers room to move and brokers reacting to the positive news with refusals to budge on reserve prices, the fleece passed in rate jumped to 26.1pc the second day.
The wash up for the week was a fall of 50 cents a kilogram for the Western Market Indicator to 1270c/kg clean, in contrast to the benchmark Eastern Market Indicator adding 4c/kg to 1131c/kg.
Broader fleece wools lost more across the week at the WWC, with the 20-micron indicator the biggest loser, dropping 79c/kg to 1299c/kg, while the 19-micron indicator lost least, down 47c/kg to 1398c/kg.
Local trader PJ Morris Wools was the main buyer on both days, with Endeavour wools and Tianyu Wools swapping second and third place on the buyers list.
This week, the WWC will offer only 6399 bales - 3716 fewer than it offered last week - but the national offering will increase slightly to 45,537 bales.
