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.
2026-S11
The AWEX EMI closed on 1878c down 12c at auction sales in Australia this week. 23,486 bales went under the hammer in all selling centres with Fremantle only offering on Tuesday. 90% of the offering cleared in a see sawing market, that resulted in the EMI rising 3c on Tuesday. Tuesday’s EMI closed on 1893c, and more importantly added 17c to the EMI in USD. It should be noted that the EMI was negatively impacted by the sharp fall in the Merino Carding Indices. Wednesday’s market opened with less vigour on the average style medium and coarser Merino fleece lots, which pulled the EMI down 15c on Wednesday. The pass in rate on Wednesday climbed to 11.7% of the offering and was pulled back by the near 13% pass in rate in Melbourne as growers exercised their right to a bid. The unfavourable AUD - USD Foreign Exchange rates saw the AUD climb to 72.24c up .89c as the market closed mid-week.
Merino Fleece
Merino Fleece, as mentioned last week the increase in the percentage of medium (21µ) and broader fleece in this week’s catalogue, were too much for the market to handle pushing the 19.5 and coarser MPG’s down 20-50c. Whilst exporters have been scrambling to build their wool inventories to take to the Nanjing Wool Markets conference late next week. Best style and Superior Specified FNF Fleece lots fared attracting favourable prices this week. Lots in certified integrity schemes were noticeably favoured in the auction rooms with both exporter interest and price premium building on the AWSS Mulesed with Pain Relief Schemes. The Merino Fleece buyers were dominated by the large local Trading Exporters and Indent operators with the top 4 exporters taking about 58% of the offering.
Merino Skirtings
Merino Skirtings: with best style, Low VM and good specifications and bulk opened with a real bang adding 50c whilst the other lots were just a pinch dearer. Demand for skirtings have been somewhat detached from the Merino Fleece sector. The top 4 exporters secured 54.9% of the skirting offering.
Merino Cardings
Merino Cardings: Closed the week cheaper with Tuesday being the worst day for the oddments with Crutchings and Stains taking the largest price cut in the northern region whilst Crutchings were least favourable in the south. Sydney lost 46c, Melbourne lost 8c and Fremantle dropped 35c on Tuesday, whilst the North and South MC’s maintaining within 1c on Wednesday.
Crossbred Fleece
Crossbred Oddments
Crossbreds
Crossbreds continued their upward price trajectory adding 10c for the 28-30µ fleece types, with a slightly weaker market developing in the 25-27µ range after a solid opening. 76.1% of the offering dominated by the trading exporters with the top 4 purchasing 76.1% of the offering
Next Week
Next week’s national offering climbs back up to 30,185 bales. I feel the only factor that might save the EMI from dropping to much next week is the sharp drop in the AUD exchange rate overnight, as oil prices surged >10.8% pushing oil back up over $100 us/barrel ~ Marty Moses
Graphs
Market Commentary
The past month we have been hearing from our intelligence sources that Chinese interest has been apprehensive due to some resistance of the price of wool tops being passed on to the wool processing pipeline. In addition to this pause from China there has been some resurgence in inventory replacement from the European and Indian mills. It seems that everyone needs wool at some point and we are entering an interesting period where fresh production may not satisfy the demand.
Quantities offered at auction this season have fallen to 9.8% (23,983 bales) below the same time last year at a time where the downstream stocks are reportedly exhausted, as well as the inventories of bales held on farm and in Brokers stores are historically low.
The other interesting snippet of information is the increase in inquiry for Certified Wool from China and it’s not just certified NM wool. Certified wool from sheep that are Mulesed with Pain relief has come into view through the unique AWSS ResponsiWOOL program. The attraction of fully traceable wool in the bale is starting to create demand for the product.