Market Intelligence
Weekly Wool Market Commentary
Moses & Son is committed to providing our valued customers the most current information and data to empower your decision-making process. Discover our latest Australian wool market weekly update below, along with archived reports for your perusal and analysis.
2024-S44
Week S44: 1/05/2025: The AWEX EMI closed on 1210c, down 22c at auction sales in Australia this week. Currency exchange saw the AUD rise by .63c over the week which took the EMI in US$ terms down 6c to 774c. After the Easter 1 week recess, 40,295 bales went on offer. As predicted the pre easter market apprehension continuing into this week’s sale which resulted in the clearance rate reducing to 84.2%, as sellers demonstrated resistance to the new price convention on offer. Competition appeared somewhat cautious in the sale room with the EMI closing down 14c on Wednesday. Thursday’s market opened with a slightly less negative feel in patches however the result for the EMI was another 8c loss. Exporters were left unsatisfied with the business confidence and sellers, whilst keen to sell into a firm market were largely disappointed and reluctantly passed in all of some of their clip.
Merino Fleece
Performed in two distinct categories, those lots that met the Chinese standard specifications, and those lots that fell outside. Lots with the first sign of the dry conditions creeping further north into NSW are starting to present a growing number of Low yielding lots which limits who can bid on them. Whilst Thursday measured a few pockets of positive movements in the medium micron lots. The rest continued to fall at a slower rate.
Merino Skirtings
Opened with some resistance to the direction of the fleece however it did not take long for the needle to turn and there were pockets of the skirting offering that fell between 20c-50c. Thursday saw a continuation of this weakness.
Merino Cardings
Merino Cardings remained slightly cheaper this week on the eastern selling centres.
Crossbred Fleece
Crossbred Oddments
Crossbreds
Remained slightly weaker for both days with some bright spots for isolated superior specified and Certified lots.
Next Week
Offering falls back to 31,546 bales and coupled with the release of the Wool Production Forecast committee releasing the fourth estimate for the 2024-5 season of 280mkg down 11.8% in addition the first forecast for 2025/26 season has been released with a stunning reduction of 8.4% which equates to 257 Mkg for the season. ~ Marty Moses.
Graphs
Market Commentary
As the world waits for some economic stability to reemerge after the US Tariff upheaval a few weeks ago, wool remains under a pricing cloud as exporters and early-stage processors remain wary and unwilling to take risks after most of them have endured a pretty challenging financial year. I have had many discissions with exporter principals of how they plan to reduce cost and risk from their business models. This may include reducing the orders that require more than a few weeks to purchase and ship, eliminating the interest component. I have not seen any indicators that signal a price recovery any time soon.