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.
2025-S52
The AWEX EMI closed the week on 1943c, down 46c at auction sales in Australia this week. The EMI fell 63c in USD terms with the AUD falling from just over 70c to 68.9c over the selling week. 26,179 bales were offered over the three selling centres this week with clearance rates predictably reducing to 83.4% as sellers resisted the somewhat lumpy price falls.
Whilst the Merino Fleece and, to a slightly lesser extent, Skirtings felt the full force of the new pricing, Crossbreds continued to attract spirited bidding forcing up on their MPG’s on the back of lower volumes being offered. Moses & Son were lucky to be rostered on early on Tuesday and whilst we felt the market pull back in the merino fleece offering, we were fortunate not to have sold towards the end of the day or slightly worse, on Wednesday.
Merino Fleece
Merino Fleece opened the week with exporters immediately reducing their price basis on all merino fleece types. The last sale week of the wool selling season, could not muster any more resistance with the softer sentiment noted last Wednesday developing into a price rebase. Selected better types (Certified NM lots) were least affected, as were a small pockets of 17.5μ fleece. Most other lots were generally around 70c cheaper, extending out to as much as 90c when compared to last week. Wednesday saw the market down 5-20c with a pass-in rate of 12%. Exporters were more selective with the largest falls measured in High CVH, low NKT and fleece lots with greater than 1.3% VM. Unifrom, stylish, well classed fleece over 40NKT closed firm on Wednesday.
Merino Skirtings
Merino Skirtings opened the week under pressure from the merino fleece price rebase. Skirtings were generally 20-40c cheaper on Tuesday with Wednesday’s market holding those levels especially on lots with 5% VM or less. Conversely, Skirtings with higher VM continued to be harder to sell, whilst the FNF (<2% VM) lots attracted spirited competition.
Merino Cardings
Merino Cardings measured smaller falls with the Sydney and Melbourne giving back -10 and -5 respectively. The Stains were noticeably cheaper on Tuesday with locks and crutchings under 8% generally holding ground. Wednesday saw the locks and crutchings prices drift back slightly.
Crossbred Fleece
Crossbred Oddments
Crossbreds
Crossbreds operated oblivious to the merino combing wool pull back, with lower volumes on offer resulting in 26 MPG +55c, 28 MPG +10 and 32 MPG +15. 25 and 30 MPG’s added 3c and 2c respectively. Note, without the crossbred’s strong performance the fall in the EMI would have been somewhat higher.
Next Week
Next week is the first sale of the 2026/27 wool selling season, with an offering of 33,489 bales. This is normally one of the larger sales of the season as some sellers wait to sell in the new financial year, however this is not the case in 2026. ~Marty Moses
Graphs
Market Commentary
Whilst the sour finish, the season statistics paints an incredibly positive picture. The EMI opened the season at 1,207c, and closed the season on 1943c, adding 736c for the year, an increase of 61%. In USD terms the EMI added 557 USc for the season, an increase of 71%.
Despite the overall smaller national seasonal auction offering (-2.9%), the total value of wool sold has well exceeded the previous season. There has been a total of $2.614 million worth of wool sold through the auction system, this is $675m more than the previous season. AWTA test figures indicate a reduction in bales tested of ~9% with a few days of testing to go in June, indicating a significant number of bales being sold from grower stocks and held in brokers warehouses, as well as wool stored on farms for several seasons. The current wool production forecast indicates the 25/26 season falling 255.4mkg -8.8% while the 2026/27 forecast has been projected at 243.9 mkg down 4.5%. With sheep and lamb at near record prices, it’s hard to see the production of wool producing sheep returning to any meaningful quantities in the next few years.